There’s a celebrated scene in dos-toyevsky's classic novel .the gambler in which a wealthy, 75 year old Russian grandmother takes a seat in a casino and watches a young man pile up his winnings “tell him to stop a take his money with. Soon he will be losing-yes; losing everything that he has now won”
In the wake of the meltdown of the stock market in Moscow this month, there are quite a few Russians who probably wish they had heeded the sort of advice. For after partying through several years of heady growth, much of it financed by borrowing from abroad, the nation’s scrappy banking system and it’s underdeveloped financial markets are suddenly losing much of what they have won in the past couple of years-and more