The drop in world oil prices is still biting hard at Russia's economy. As oil has collapsed, so has the value of the ruble. And the people who've been hit hardest — pensioners and people who aspire to join the middle class — are groups that are important to President Vladimir Putin's political base.For many Russians, the symbol of entering the middle class was the ability to buy a house or apartment. In the growing prosperity of the mid-2000s, people began taking mortgage loans to make that possible, and home sales took off.Today, some buyers who were part of that boom are struggling and have been staging rallies in the streets of Moscow, calling on the government to help with their mortgages.Dmitry Novikov, a 33-year-old electrical engineer, says he and his wife are in trouble."We have a loan of $84,000 from the bank," he says, "and now our payments are around twice what they used to be. In the future, it might take my whole salary and more," he says.The Novikovs are part of an
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