11. Law and Order: Corruption Issues in Russia.

Nowadays corruption is one of the most significant problems, especially in Russia. In Russia's criminal legislation, "corruption" is not defined as a specific crime, but a collective term which include bribery, abuse(злоупотр-е) of office and others. Russia has one of the leading positions in the list of most corruptive countries in the world. Corruption is often considered as a major factor behind economic problems in the nation. Economists say corruption is hurting investor confidence and curbing economic growth.

Many of foreign political analists says, that Russia is unique. The businessmen, the politicians, and the bureaucrats are the same people. They have privatized the country’s wealth and taken control of its financial flows.

One of the essential agenda of our president and government is the struggle against corruption. Dmitry Medvedev has said he wanted a package of anti-corruption legislation in place by next year. But not everything is so simple. In our life people get accustomed to do everything for a little reward refusing to complete their job. And that’s reveal everywhere from kindergartens to hospitals and courts.

Corruption runs through (пронизывать) all levels of our life from school education to issues of big economy and policy. It’s really hard to get rid of it because the corruption is the reflexion of most poisonous features of characters, such as mercenariness (mercenary spirit), greediness, covetousness (алчность), double-facedness (двуличие), egoism and others. That’s not enough from the part of the government to enter new laws, to change the structure of power, the main thing is to change the understanding, and that’s the most difficult task.

In my opinion not only those who take bribes are guilty but also those who give bribes as there is no demand without offer. To eradicate the problem we should begin from ourselves, with our life understanding and consciousness. And of course the role of the teacher in this is very important. First of all we should show on our own example that it’s not acceptable. And also we should teach the little kids to be honest, truthful, to show them real values of this life in order to bring up generation with another understanding and consciousness, we are obliged to correct our mistakes and mistakes of our ancestors who made corruption like a tradition of our country and to make the generation of our children better then we are.

There is a very popular Balzac’s quotation “behind every great fortune is a crime” that reveals the issue of the corruption. The quotation obviously has sense. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to earn much money by the honest mean without cheating, getting bribes, stealing or even killing. Unfortunately some people won’t stop even before the murder to reach their aim and become a little bit richer then they are. But also there are cases when really honest and hard-working people having worked all their life earned a big fortune not without the help of the luck and destiny but in general not using dishonest means. But such cases are too seldom; it’s possible to meet good and honest people in the field of big economy, politics. It’s the place of big sharks that have too little borders and limits, that having gone through many things that destroy the person, his moral values and human understanding.