* TV shows piles of European cheese being bulldozed
* Zealous officials throw imported bacon into furnace
* Priest denounces Kremlin campaign as insane and sinful
* Food inflation over 20 pct, poverty rates soar
* Russian society still recalls Soviet era famines
By Gabriela Baczynska
MOSCOW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Russian government plans for mass
destruction of banned Western food imports have provoked outrage
in a country where poverty rates are soaring and memories remain
of famine during Soviet times.
Even some Kremlin allies are expressing shock at the idea of
"food crematoria" while one orthodox priest has denounced the
campaign, which officially began on Thursday, as insane and
sinful. However, the authorities are determined to press on with
destroying illegal imports they consider "a security threat".
Russian TV showed a small mountain of illegally imported
European cheese being bulldozed on Thursday while even before
the official start, zealous workers threw boxes of European
bacon into an incinerator.
Moscow banned many Western food imports last year in
retaliation for sanctions imposed by the United States, European
Union and other of their allies during the confrontation over
Ukraine. But now many Russians say the government has lost sight
of the everyday struggles faced by ordinary citizens.
More than 267,000 people have backed an online petition on
Change.org, an international website that hosts campaigns,
calling on President Vladimir Putin to revoke the decision and
hand the food to people in need.
"Sanctions have led to a major growth in food prices on
Russian shelves. Russian pensioners, veterans, large families,
the disabled and other needy social groups were forced to
greatly restrict their diets, right up to starvation," it says.
"If you can just eat these products, why destroy it?"
With annual food price inflation running at over 20 percent,
public indignation has been deepened by Russian media reports
that the agriculture ministry was tendering to buy "mobile food
crematoria" to speed up the destruction. Agriculture minister
Alexander Tkachev declined to comment on Wednesday.
Putin's decree ordering the food to be destroyed entered
into force on Thursday. It does not specify methods but says the
process should be carried out "by any available means" and
videotaped, apparently to prevent corrupt officials from simply
helping themselves and holding a feast.
How much food has evaded the embargo is unclear, but
considerable quantities appear to have slipped through the net
by various routes, including via Belarus.
The ban, currently in place until Aug.5, 2016, covers a wide
range of imports including pork, beef, poultry, fish and
seafood, milk and dairy products, fruits, vegetables and nuts.
It applies to food from the United States, EU, Canada, Australia
and Norway.
Notwithstanding the petition, no one starves in modern
Russia, unlike in the Soviet era when countless millions
perished between the 1920s and 1940s from hunger and related
disease in both peace time and World War Two.
After the fall of Communism, Russians developed a strong
appetite in the 1990s for Western food imports from cheap U.S.
chicken quarters to fine French cheeses for the newly wealthy.
Now the soaring food prices are hurting the poor at a time
when the economy is in crisis due to the effects of the
sanctions and a steep fall in the price of oil, Russia's main
export. The rouble has lost more than 40 percent of its value
against the dollar and overall inflation is above 15 percent.
The Rosstat statistics agency says the number of Russians
living below the poverty line - defined as those earning less
than 10,400 roubles ($160) a month - has jumped. In the first
quarter this year, the total hit 23 million, or 16 percent of
the population, up from more than 16 million people, or 11
percent of Russians last year.
Opposition figure and former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov
responded with bitter irony. "20 million Russian citizens are
below poverty line. Their president ordered food products
destruction from Aug.6. Some real triumph of humanism," Kasyanov
said on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR).
But even some government allies are critical. "I don't
understand how food can be destroyed in a country that lived
through the horrible hunger during the war and tough years that
followed," said a prominent pro-Kremlin TV anchor, Vladimir
Solovyov.
"INSANE AND STUPID"
Authorities in several regions have already got to work on
what they said were illegal imports.
"Any product without documents poses a security threat and
should be destroyed," said Andrei Panchenko, the head of
agricultural watchdog in the Belgorod region, as workers threw
the boxes of bacon into a stove.
Officials say the embargo will encourage Russian producers
to fill the gap. Now the authorities are also proposing to limit
imports of X-ray machines and defibrillators for hospitals,
which are already complaining of poor equipment. Even condoms
could make it to the list of restricted imports.
One priest from the Russian Orthodox Church, which enjoys
close ties with the Kremlin, expressed his anger.
"My grandmother always told me that throwing away food is a
sin," the cleric, Alexey Uminsky, was quoted by the website
'Orthodoxy and the World' as saying. "This idea is insane,
stupid and vile."
"Such an idea can only appear with a man who has been in no
need for anything in recent decades and is ready to do something
like that for populism and quasi-patriotism," he added.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov offered little hope of a
change of heart, saying: "The presidential decree is taking
effect and must be carried out."
Peskov said Putin was aware of the petition but cast doubt
on the numbers, saying the website did not vet votes carefully
enough. But the Kremlin has hit a raw nerve with many Russians.
"To destroy food with this standard of living is a crime
against one's own nation!" wrote a backer of the petition who
gave her name on the website as Natalya Afanasieva. "Come to
your senses, Mr. President, finally take at least some pity on
your people!"
($1 = 64.2000 roubles)
(Editing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and David Stamp)