soup time

There is some kind of soup kitchen near the station (provided I presume by a charity) which is, as you can see, well-attended. There have been various - mainly desultory - references to problems with poverty, both as part of the national elections and from the new mayor of Moscow as he settles in. In fact, the Moscow News recently reported a city Poverty Plan. To quote the report (by Nathan Toohey), Vladimir Petrosyan, head of Moscow's Social Welfare Department, said: 

that a “social contract” had been agreed with 26 Moscow families, while a further 84 families were prepared to take part in the program. The contract lasts six-month with the authorities obliged to provide work, place any children in day care and even “send grandmothers to a sanatorium, for example.”

So that should sort it. (Although I should add that things only seem a little better in Moscow, Idaho. I kept getting articles on poverty from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News when I was doing that Googling thing.)