Volume 45, Number 18 · November 19, 1998
Russian Roulette
By Tatyana Tolstaya
When I opened the newspaper on the morning of August 17, I saw the headline 'Market Crashes.' I'm not an economist and understand nothing of the enigmatic world of money. For me, the word 'market' means open-air stands where old ladies from villages near Moscow sell cheap freshly picked mushrooms, garlic, potatoes, and dill, and men from the Caucasus whose teeth are capped in gold for the beauty and prestige of it offer unbelievably expensive peaches and a spicy sauce called adzhika—you taste a drop and flames leap out of your mouth. Reading the words 'market crashes,' I imagined dilapidated wooden stands collapsing and velvety peaches rolling across wet asphalt in consort with escaping potatoes.
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