Despite the current economic difficulties, the state must make sure the Russian retirees get their pensions on time and in full, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said at a meeting with the Russian Pension Fund’s regional division CEO Viktor Chernobrovin. The latter, in his turn, assured the Governor that all of the region’s pensioners were getting their payments without delays.

Chernobrovin said the special federal bill provided for a pension rise on January 1, 2010. The insured pension part of all those who retired after 2002 is to be raised by 10%, with an extra 1% increase per each year in employment up to January 1, 1991. The official said this was expected to improve the lives of those who’d worked the so-called Soviet term of service. As a result, the average pay rise should come to about 1,700 RUR for retirees over seventy.

As it happens, there are over 900,000 pensioners living in Chelyabinsk Region at the moment, and their average pension payments come to 5,334 RUR a month.

According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Petr Sumin and Viktor Chernobrovin also spoke about the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s proposal to use the so-called maternity money to pay off mortgages. It was declared on January 1, 2009 that the money a family gets upon having their second and/or consecutive children can now be spent on the children’s education, the mother’s retirement savings, or improving the family’s housing conditions. The family is free to invest the lump sum in just one thing or split the money up. So far, about 2,000 families have used the subsidy to cover their mortgage payments in Chelyabinsk Region.