Prices Spiral As Russia Economy Hits Thin Ice

Marina Gennadievna tends her hot dog stall all day in the bitter cold.

She's bundled up in thick winter clothes, peering at customers from under her hat, huddled near the stove for warmth.

It's -20C, but apparently this is nothing - the temperature regularly drops to -40C.

She told Sky News prices in the shops are rising and she cannot afford to live on her pension.

She has to be out here working, but she doesn't think any of it is Russian President Vladimir Putin's fault.

"Putin is doing everything correctly, but he should really monitor his comrades, check their work," she said.

"The housing and public utility prices are rising even though Putin said on TV not to do so.

"He is so busy with politics now in Ukraine and other places."

The president she sees on the television news is busy - he's firm, resolute, robustly defending the Russian interests he insists the West is seeking to undermine.

But not everyone sees it that way.

In Blagoveshchensk they have a unique perspective - on the other side of the frozen Amur River, you can see the gleaming towers of Heihe City in China.

The argument that Russia's economic problems are all the fault of the West perhaps carries less water when you can see what looks like the rise of your neighbour to the East.

The region's former economic development minister said the country needs new management - that Mr Putin's administration had brought stability, but now Russia needed a government to develop the economy.

"From my perspective the current government should get off the stage," Andrey Koniushok said.

"They completed their role, but now we need another manager - someone who can build up small businesses."

And he was frank about the reality of doing business in Mr Putin's Russia.

"Our federal agencies do not work for the monitoring of businesses. They just exist to fine businesses, for any small particular reason," he said.

"A big portion of earnings goes to pay fines, and sometimes bribes."

Businessman Dmitry Gudzovskiy described the bureaucracy, and what he sees as the Soviet mentality, he's up against.

"In our country they make laws like hot apple pies and I don't really understand why they do it," he said.

"Not a single businessman will tell you on camera that he is paying bribes, but you should guess yourself."

Russia now wants to build a gas pipeline through this region to China.

It would bring some jobs, but it's not exactly a new strategy for a country already so heavily dependent on sales of oil and gas.

And China has its own issues with weakening growth.

Both countries' citizens are allowed to cross the border, via an old bus across the frozen river.

Russians used to find shopping on the Chinese side cheap, but now it's the other way around - the rouble is worth about half as much as it was against the yuan.

"It feels like they're getting richer," one man told us, "and we're getting poorer."