Social Results of Transformation, or Twenty Years after

The article contains generalized calculations of Russian citizens’ level of prosperity during 1989–2009. Particularly, the authors consider Russian citizens’ income and expenses change, shifts in physical indicators of consumption (including non-market services) and estimate the availability of housing stock. The authors also try to construct certain level of prosperity index generalizing all those factors. Despite the complexity of intertemporal comparison (during the last 20 years the life has simply become different) the authors come to the conclusion: the living standard of Russian citizens raised (ca. 50%), but because of the increased stratification of the society during this period it has affected not all population strata.