On August 14, 2023 Moscow was a city on edge. Ukrainian drones were flying into its buildings. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the warlord who had marched a mutinous army towards the capital a few weeks previously, was still at large. But what most unnerved Muscovites that warm Monday was the state of the rouble.

Tracking the ups and downs of the local currency, which is highly sensitive to global energy prices, is a national pastime in Russia. When it falls below 100 to the dollar people start to worry. I watched my acquaintances sit grimly glued to their screens as the rouble crashed through the psychological watershed. Where, people muttered, were the umnyi professionali (clever professionals) at the central bank?

1843 magazine