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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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For many decades, up until the late 1980s, there was no such thing as real estate market in the Soviet Union. The government provided residences to families and single persons according to their living space needs, trying to respect the principle of equality. To paraphrase the George Orwell's 'Animal farm', all humans are equal, but some humans are more equal than others. Therefore, by the mid-1980s, many Russian city dwellers still lived in communal residences ('komunalka'), where every family had one room, but many unrelated families shared the bathroom and the kitchen; the more equal had small but separate apartments (30-40 sq. meters in average), and the most equal had residences approaching the size of the western upper and upper middle class.

The socialist slogan of equal redistribution has become a hollow shell by the end of the soviet regime. People didn't believe the government could deliver on its promises to provide everyone with decent housing within reasonable time. In fact, the more the time passed, the longer would get the lines of people waiting for housing. This was the social and political context of the late 1980s, the time when people instinctively turned toward the market as main demand-supply force. If the government wasn't able to provide housing, then perhaps the market would be, they argued. Another baseless utopia, for the market doesn't supply anything unless there is financial demand, and the Russians in their majority in the late 1980s were rather poor after decades of socialist experimentation.

Nevertheless, the market made what many had predicted. With the new construction falling down compared to the Soviet period, and the social wealth polarized, it was only the class of new rich that was able to buy something. With millions of Russian pouring to Moscow from other economically destitute regions, the demand in terms of people grew enormously. From approximately 8 million persons in late 1980s Moscow now counts almost 13 million people; this increase is even more spectacular given the fact that the Russian population shrunk by 6 million during the same period. On the supply side, however, the things didn't go so well. The new construction activity actually shrunk for many years. What came to the market targeted disproportionately the new rich Russians, ready to pay in cash many thousands of dollars per sq. meter.

Russia is approaching a new electoral cycle; within less than a year we'll know who will be the new president and who'll seat in the federal parliament. The social peace in cities like Moscow is especially critical for the regime survival. In a country with such a high level of administrative centralization as Russia, a riot for any reason in the capital may quickly lead to regime collapse. With enormous fresh financial resources, the federal and the municipal authorities, representing different links in one administrative chain, are now working on a plan that will soften the demand-supply market laws, at least for the large number of new homebuyers.

According to this plan, the government will build up to 130 million sq. meter (approximately 1.3 billion sq. ft) a year of residential space for the next 5-6 years; a half of this plan will take place in Moscow. New homebuyers will pay for these residences at prices below the market levels. The details on this issue are still to be determined. After almost 2 decades of unregulated real estate market, Russia is turning slowly to some old practices. This time it does it with less ideological zeal and with more pragmatism. The state won't provide everybody with free housing; neither will expect everybody to buy it. New rich Russians will still be able to buy whatever they want; all those who are not so rich will look to the government for co-sharing the costs of the new developments. The average residential prices will stabilize and may even begin to fall. The government will buy some extra years of social peace. More Russians will have a share in the national wealth.

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