Siberia's shrouded legacy

Victoria Dvornichenko is director of Irkutsk Regional Oncology Centre and an oncologist for the Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia, Russian Federation. She has worked as an oncologist for 32 years and was a senior consultant during the break-up of the Soviet Union and the transition from central planning to a market economy. This transition has been more painful in Russia than in the central European countries that joined the European Union in May, 2004, and the 1990s in Russia were associated with a severe economic decline. But healthcare was given a high priority under the Soviet system, and this priority has remained throughout the transition. Investment in cancer care and research is still substantially high.