Word: moscow
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...want to take the pulse of Russia, as its oil and gas boom of the past few years comes to a sudden and wrenching stop, leave behind the garish consumerism of Moscow and drive 220 miles (354 km) southwest to the small Russian town of Lyudinovo. For the first part of the five-hour trip the road is a smooth four-lane highway that whisks you past gleaming gas stations and a brand new Samsung TV factory. Then everything slows down. The highway turns single-track and becomes progressively rougher. For the last 20 miles, you bump along the ruts...
...next year. And for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the threat of large-scale unemployment looms. "Money was falling from the sky in the past two to three years," says Maxim Oreshkin, the head of research at private-sector Rosbank in Moscow. "Now it's stopped falling...
...woes are not exceptional. The markets for the huge exporting firms that are the foundation of Russia's recent prosperity have suddenly dried up, and that's having an immediate effect on machinery makers and other manufacturers. Construction has also seized up in many places. Last month in Moscow, lack of funding stopped work on a Norman Foster - designed skyscraper called the Russia Tower that was going to be the tallest naturally ventilated building in the world. (See pictures of Moscow...
...pictures of Moscow...
Challenging the official line is still hazardous. On Nov. 6, the Moscow business newspaper Vedomosti carried an opinion piece by the Academy of Sciences' Gontmakher titled NOVOCHERKASSK - 2009. The headline was a reference to spontaneous strikes by workers in a Russian town in 1962 that ended in bloodshed when troops were called in and opened fire: at least 20 people were killed and three dozen wounded. In his article, Gontmakher drew some parallels between the social tensions back then and the deteriorating economy today. Within days, the newspaper received an official warning from the Kremlin's media watchdog...