Vogue launch party

Music

01.00.00.00

v/o:  The day the rouble fell 20 percent, Vogue magazine held a party for 4,000.

00.18

The cream of Moscow's elite squeezed into a shopping arcade to celebrate the launch of the first Russian edition.

00.26

Music

Map Russia

FX:  Party/applause/music

Dancers at party

v/o:  For seven years, events like this marked Moscow's dizzying rise from its communist roots. The rush to capitalism impoverished the Russian nation, but enriched its capital.

01.09

The enormous wealth of a few generating jobs, services and a middle class.

01.14

Vladimir and Natalia at party

Vladimir and Natalia had made a comfortable living from advertising and selling fashion. But like everyone here they face a sobering reality - parties this good don't last forever.

01.23

Vladimir and Natalia

Vladimir:  Of course, but nobody said it was going to be easy. Anyway, there's always Australia - we'll visit you if we have to. Everything will be fine.

Modelling agency

v/o:  Vladimir and Natalia put on a brave face, but in reality nothing about the economy is fine. Natalia works at Red star, the country's top modeling agency, that once epitomised the glamour and big money of the new Russia.

02.02

It seems it may all have been a beautiful illusion. In the first two weeks in September as the crisis spiraled out of control, business fell by an astonishing 95 percent.

Natalia

Natalia:  Versace, Cerutti, Dior cancelled their shows - this was a real job that just disappeared. The people are afraid of the crisis and don't want to come here. That's understandable.

02.32

Fashion magazines

v/o:  And if foreign investors are feeling nervous, many Muscovites are feeling panic.

02.48

Vladimir and Natalia

Vladimir:  The mood is horrible.  A lot of people lose their jobs... lose their contracts.  A friend of mine who had $800,000 in one day lost all but $1,000 he kept in cash.

Queues for food

Music

v/o:  Since the end of August Muscovites have seen their financial security collapse, as the rouble tumbled, prices soared and banks ran out of money.

03.19

Inflation rose 35 percent in one week, creating panic buying and food shortages.

Empty shop shelves

Within days the Soviet nightmare of queuing was back.

03.37

GVs of Moscow

v/o:  To live in Moscow today is to watch the soul of a city die. Almost overnight it's lost its mad, booming economy, much of its garish excess, but also its spirit and its hope. After a decade of upheavals and setbacks and triumphs, there's now an overwhelming sense that it's all over.

03.47

Boris and Masha's home in the country

v/o:  Boris and Masha have worked hard to build a secure life for their four children. But like millions of ordinary Muscovites they now feel nothing but dread for the future.

Boris and Masha

Boris:  Everybody was happy thinking that democracy had come after 75 years in a concentration camp. But unfortunately every year it is fading and the optimism is fading too.

Bag of onions

v/o:  The family went through hunger in the dying days of communism, but thought those days would never come again. While they're not rich, they did become much better off from economic reform.

04.45

Boris with pail of water

After Boris lost his state funded job as a scientific researcher, he found better paid work as a driver for a foreign company. They sold their apartment on the open market, using the money to buy a country cottage called a dacha.

But with unemployment rising daily, and shops short of goods, their dacha has become a means of survival.

05.14

Boris with bucket of onions

The family has spent the past month growing as much food as the backyard would produce and buying as much as they could store.

05.25

Masha:  Now many people are talking about hunger and we have a big family. I decided to stock up on the basic minimum for the family - cereals, potatoes, onions - things we must have if there is no food in the shops.  It is not a matter of prices going up -- food may disappear altogether.

05.36

Miners outside White House

FX:  Protest

v/o: The crash may have come with bewildering speed, but the warning signs have building for months.

06.07

Outside of Moscow the economy had long ago reached a point of no return. These Arctic coal miners took the mine director hostage after enduring more than six months without pay.

When the federal government ignored even that protest they came to Moscow and set up camp beside the government's headquarters, the White House.

Zyuganov addressing miners

v/o:  The protest became a focus for opposition leaders like the communist, Gennady Zyuganov.

06.40

But to most miners, all the Moscow politicians were cut from the same cloth, interested in themselves and not the people.

Vladimir

Vladimir:  If Zyuganov didn't exist the government wouldn't exist. What else can you say? - He's just a well-paid opposition. If he comes to power it won't change much.

Vladimir walking towards Miners' Office

v/o:  I first met Vladimir two and a half years ago in the former gulag city of Vorkuta... staging the first of several protests against President Yeltsin.

07.15

Vladimir

Vladimir:  Eighty-seven percent of the current administration are former Communists.  The smartest of the meanest have come to power.

Coal mine

v/o:  Vorkuta typified the legacy of Soviet central planning that the post-communist government had bowed to reform. Its coal mines were over-manned and inefficient. 

07.50

The people desperately needed new industry and help to get through the changes.

08.00

But hardly any of the billions of dollars of aid money and investment that poured into Moscow made its way to the provinces.

08.07

Flag on top of White House

What wasn't squandered by the government or stolen by its cronies fueled a Moscow boom that in the end proved illusory.

08.17

The miners' camp has been a stark reminder that the rest of Russia has been in crisis for years.

Vladimir

Vladimir:  Everything is very bad... we are on the Titanic. Now our goal is to save our children.

v/o:  Vladimir hides his anger behind a veneer of good humour.  But like all miners here, he feels total disillusionment. There is nothing more to believe in, no idea to rally behind.

08.47

Vladimir

Vladimir:  Capitalism is shit! Shit, yes. We tried it, and we didn't like it. We didn't like it.  They called what we used to have socialism,  but it wasn't socialism. What they called capitalism in Russia of course was not capitalism - it was shit.

09.00

Marching band

Music

v/o:  If the people have accepted that the good days are over, some of their political leaders are having more trouble letting go.

09.28

Music

v/o:  Rampant inflation, mass sackings and financial collapse didn't stop Moscow's Mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, holding a huge celebration for the people's 851st anniversary.

09.46

Anniversary celebrations

Few watching could doubt it was also a celebration of Yuri Luzhkov. The first big float bore an uncanny resemblance to Yuri Luzhkov. 

10.05

You could even buy plastic hats that were copies of Yuri Luzhkov's. And there was only one speech for the whole anniversary - by Yuri Luzhkov.

Luzhkov giving speech

Luzhkov:  We Muscovites have all the opportunities.  We want to serve and we do serve, only one God... Moscow!

10.29

Anniversary celebrations

v/o:  And this is a good time for Moscow politicians. Luzhkov is just one of the elite pursuing an often denied but barely disguised bid to be President.  His campaign has been boosted immeasurably by the fact that Boris Yeltsin has all but given up power.

Parliament

The radicals in the Lower House of parliament, the state Duma, have never felt stronger.

11.14

v/o:  As the politicians performed and argued about who would form the next government, Vladimir watched disgusted from the gallery.

Miners' protest in Duma gallery

FX:  Protest

v/o:  He and his fellow miners decided that it was time their voices were heard.

11.49

Vladimir

Vladimir:  We don't want the government of murderers! We don't want the government of thieves! We want the Duma to stand up and defend the people - and if they do, we'll stand up to defend the state Duma. The miners will come to the Duma to defend it.

11.54

Miners' protest

v/o:  And for once the miners got what they wanted.

12.13

Primakov

The Duma forced on Yeltsin a new government headed by the Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, who once ran Soviet espionage. He appointed two senior communists to run the economy. It's a political deal that cooled the political heat.

12.20

Boris and Masha

But Boris and Masha fear it will make the economic crisis even worse.

12.38

Boris:  Now, with Primakov's nomination the political situation will calm down for at least half a year I think.  What will happen in the economy, I don't know. He is a man from the stagnation times,  and although he is intelligent he won't think of anything new.

12.40

Miners building shelters

v/o:  But at the protest camp the miners are building winter shelters. The miners' plight has touched many Muscovites who believe they are all on the same sinking ship.

13.08

Yelena Domanina makes a long journey into the centre every day to collect and wash their laundry for free.

13.21

Yelena

Yelena:  The situation is really hard, and when I look at them... it's very difficult when people live in these conditions. They are not cared for - they don't have water... they can't even do their laundry. They have to spend nights in these tents - these are not their homes. It is very difficult and just looking at them brings tears to my eyes.

Miners' camp

v/o:  Anger is building in Russia among people with nothing else to lose. They face a winter of empty bellies, infrequent heating and nothing to hope for but spring.

14.13

Vladimir

Campbell:  When do you go back?

Vladimir:  As soon as we win. There is nowhere to go.  To look in the hungry faces of my family? There is no way out. There is no money in Vorkuta - we felt absolutely helpless there.  We have been here for almost 90 days now and all this time we felt like real mean who have finally stood up to defend their motherland. It is hard. I am 43, and the motherland is in such danger.

14.24

Camp outside White House

v/o:  Just weeks ago there was still a sense that the future would be brighter. But a time of hope and security and freedom may have gone for good; the dream now is to just survive.

Ends 15.23