The current crisis is unlike those of 1998 and 2008 that most of us remember. It is both longer and very different than the others, and it does not help that both the Russian people and Kremlin leaders have frivolously high expectations concerning its outcome. Everyone is clearly ready for a crisis, but they are prepared for a repeat of previous crises, and not for the one that has actually come.
According to economist Konstantin Sonin, the authorities' incompetent response to the crisis is reminiscent of the "theater of the absurd" of 1990, when leaders' actions and words had no connection to what was actually happening with the economy. In commenting on how officials now say the economy has already hit bottom, Sonin points out that the recession that began in 1990 reached its nadir only seven years later.
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