A couple of years ago, an NGO reported that Russia has the worst sanitation record in the world among developed countries. Just back from a trip to the Caucasus region – Dagestan, in particular – and its easy to see why that’s the case. The report said 35 million Russians don’t have flush toilets in their homes and instead rely on outhouses. While there are so many take aways from a visit to Dagestan, the crushing poverty outside of the capital city of Makhachkala and the second city of Derbent is impossible to overlook. Very few of the homes we visited had toilets. There are more than 200 abandoned villages in Dagestan. No wonder. Built high up in the mountains back in the days when staying safe from advancing armies was the priority, younger people have fled in droves. New infrastructure of any kind is extremely rare. And basic amenities are largely absent. Russia may be a rich country but the disparities are vast. Huge swaths of it – tens of millions of people – are destitute. And big legacy projects – like the new bridge to Crimea – are doing nothing to change that.
