Perks in the Russian military are few and in between but what they can count on is permanent housing in many case, free healthcare, and a steady pay check comparable to a McDonald’s fast food worker here in the United States…and a host of supportive services. Pictured here: Russian army soldiers on training exercise.
During a speech in an expanded Defense Ministry meeting on December 19, 2014 President of Russia Vladimir Putin announced his plan to improve the lives of those people serving in the Russian Armed Forces by providing such things as permanent housing and modernizing military barracks and rebuilding military infrastructure.
“Colleagues, resolving military service personnel’s social issues remains a top priority for us. As at December this year, the Defense Ministry had provided more than 13,000 service personnel with permanent housing. Of this total, 4,800 used the new method of subsidies for purchasing or building housing. More than 18,000 people received service housing. This is nearly nine percent higher than the planned target for the year.
We need to keep up this positive trend in 2015 and above all complete the plans to build 24,000 service apartments. Let me repeat once more that construction of the service housing stock should be entirely completed in the coming years.
Let me remind you too that as part of our plans for developing military infrastructure, we will develop and modernize 535 military garrisons by 2020. Work is already complete at more than a quarter of them, and another 142 garrisons will be ready next year.
As we agreed, all large garrisons with more than 1,500 people should have sports facilities with swimming pools, recreation and leisure centers and so on, all the needed social infrastructure. Modern conditions for service and possibilities for work, study, and interesting leisure for service personnel’s families are extremely important for making military service prestigious and for the mood and morale of the service personnel in general”, said Putin.
Source: Kremlin
See video: Russian Army conscript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1idTSSc_7Ts
See related video: Russian Army commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYxeGb3pXzk
See video: Russian Navy commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Vkjtg1ZHs