Word: moscow
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...baron capitalism and state control. And now it is snatching away the greatest accomplishments of the painful Yeltsin years: a stable ruble and low inflation. On one sticky afternoon, Yeltsin vows that he will not devalue the ruble and won't even break off his vacation to return to Moscow. Three days later, he does both. Russians view it as a betrayal...
...maintain the ruble's value sapped its hard-currency reserves, now down to $17 billion. That is a significant figure: it's all that's left to help keep the ruble from falling through the floor of the new trading range: 9.5 to the dollar. Some currency exchanges on Moscow's streets are already asking 10 for a dollar...
This crisis ultimately is not about exchange rates, though. The IMF has been pumping billions into Russia on the proviso that much needed reforms will be rammed through. Moscow asked for even more money a few days before devaluing, but the IMF finally said no. Russia now must figure out how to collect taxes more aggressively from corporations, banks and individuals. The government cannot survive by taking in less revenue than it expects and trying to balance the budget by slashing spending. If it follows that course, millions of unpaid teachers, soldiers and government employees will never get the months...
...usual. The manufacturing sector, after all, failed from the start: State-owned factories -- churning out goods that people no longer wanted -- were unable to adapt to a market in which consumers had a choice. "Much of the country has lived, literally, without money for years," says TIME Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge. "The meltdown in Moscow is simply bringing it into line with the rest of Russia." By comparison, consider China's transition to capitalism: The Communists never relinquished tight political control but transformed its manufacturing sector into a producer of goods -- Nike, the Gap and much more --- that...
...only certainty under Chernomyrdin's coalition is that things will get worse before they get better. But after surviving seven grueling decades of communism and a Nazi invasion that killed 20 million people in only four years, it's not surprising that Russians greet news of financial collapse in Moscow not with panic, but with a resigned shrug...