Spatial inequality can lead to unexpected consequences, especially in large countries like Russia. State officials’ attempts to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic led to a national lockdown, which was supposed to dramatically reduce the daily mobility of people and therefore the likelihood of infection. At the same time, the Russian government did not introduce an emergency regime, and the measures to support the population and business were criticized by experts as insufficient. Using daily data on mobility in 308 municipalities in Russia, we examined the unevenness of the decline in the level of mobility depending on the level of wages. The results show that the poorer the municipality, the smaller was the mobility decline, that is, the poorer areas were more vulnerable to the pandemic risks. The work also illustrates the larger amplitude of mobility in rich versus poor areas during the period of exiting from the lockdown.

空间不平等会导致意想不到的后果，尤其是在俄罗斯这样的大国中。国家官员试图阻止冠状病毒大流行的蔓延导致了全国封锁，这被认为会大大减少人们的日常流动性，并因此降低感染的可能性。同时，俄罗斯政府没有实行紧急状态制度，专家们批评支持人口和商业的措施是不够的。使用俄罗斯308个城市的每日流动性数据，我们检查了流动性下降的不均匀性，具体取决于工资水平。结果表明，城市越穷，流动性下降幅度越小，也就是说，贫困地区更容易受到大流行风险的影响。