
Russia's
political icons and ideologies may have tumbled but Churchill's 'riddle
wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma' remains an apt descriptive
chestnut. Outsiders still have only a hazy grasp of daily life in
Russia, and the unfolding effects of a deregulated market economy are
surrounded by rumors of rampant crime and prostitution, relentless
drug-trafficking, mile-long queues for nonexistent food and a general
end-of-the-world aura.