My father owns a medium-sized business in Samara, Russia, (some sort of an industrial technological company… I’ve been so detached from his development that I am no more up-to-date on his business ventures) and whenever I a
sk him about the current economic crisis, he gets confused and confuses everybody.
At first he says the crisis is drastic. Two weeks ago he canceled my parents’ long-planned trip to Cuba, because he “only had theoretical money.” Basically, he’d started a few projects and had to halt them, because no down payments were coming in. Last week he scrambled and did find money for the vacation, saying the crisis is really blown out of proportion by the media – just like it was some time earlier in the U.S. Yesterday, however, I sensed fright and despair in his voice again.
After my first conversation with dad, I called my friend Mike in Moscow. He’s an American citizen, working for a U.S. company in Russia’s capital. I asked him how bad the crisis in Russia really was. Mike said (more…)
