Word: kaluga
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...tend to be people too young to remember Soviet times and unburdened by any ideological aversion to capitalism. Valentina Zagrebelnaya, 25, is part of that generation. She treads carefully as she crosses Lenin Street so as not to get mud on her spike-heeled ankle boots. She runs the Kaluga branch of KMB bank, which specializes in giving small loans to entrepreneurs. She was 21 when she opened the bank branch, a graduate fresh from the local arts college, with no financial experience. No matter. Although there were few takers in the first couple of years, there were about...
There are no oil wells in Kaluga, no gold mines, no rich mineral deposits. In fact, until recently there was very little in this town (pop. 345,000) other than some run-down farms, a distillery that produces mediocre vodka, a big statue of a Soviet rocket-science pioneer and a war-era T-34 tank monument that still bears the inscription FOR STALIN AND THE MOTHERLAND...
...shiny new restaurant, which also offers wireless Internet access. Nearby are a sushi bar, a kitchen-design store, a café that bears a passing resemblance to Starbucks, a bright yellow mobile-phone kiosk that's open 24 hours a day and Jackpot, a slot-machine arcade that marks Kaluga's attempt at glamour. "You can see people have more money," says Alexander Kuptsov, owner of Bellissimo, a shoe boutique that stocks a range of little-known Italian brands alongside a few famous ones like Valentino. In a good month he sells 150 pairs, far more than he did just...
Indeed, growing numbers of ordinary Russians appear willing to trade some liberties for the economic opportunities that stability provides. Sergei Kuznetsov, 32, is one Russian in a hurry to live better. He used to sell sausage from a kiosk in Kaluga's open-air market, a tough business under any circumstances and particularly after the 1998 crisis, when the government temporarily suspended debt repayments and devalued the ruble 30%. But the economy recovered much faster than anyone expected. Together with his wife and a friend, Kuznetsov scraped and borrowed to buy a crude packaging machine and set up a business...