Everyone's making all the right noises about the strength of the economy. Today no-one's taking the long view. A friend of mine who works in finance once joked with me as I signed a deal with him, 'I must warn you, your investment could fall as well as plummet'.  Today he was bang on the money.

Wednesday 17 September
I'm at the MICEX exchange for the opening of business. It's nothing like London with loud-jacketed dealers screaming and gesticulating. Here it's quiet and reserved. At the top of the room, around a bank of screens, there are about 20 people with worried looks on their faces, concerned there won't be a bounce. I watch for the first 30 minutes and there's obvious relief as the exchange is up by 7%, but then the drop begins. The figures go down slowly at first but then with a bit more acceleration. It forces the authorities to step in again and stop trading.
     In one of the huge skyscrapers rising up above Moscow, I've come to meet Tom Mundy who works for one of the big banking firms.  He moved here from the UK seven years ago and admits he's enjoyed the benefits of a booming economy. He admits people are worried. 'If you take the long view in Russia, there's no need to panic, but that's little consolation to anyone who holds stocks in something like Gazprom and you're getting killed in the market this morning'. There's logic to his argument but the panic is winning.

Thursday 18 September
Across from Europe's biggest theatre sits Russia's main military museum. It's easy to find the front door with a World War II tank and the large artillery gun at either side. Up the marble stairs past the bust of Lenin and the spectacular mural is the museum's latest exhibit, a display on the Georgian war. On show are the captured weapons and equipment of the Georgians.
    Obviously it's all in Russian but I'm intrigued by the substantial connection being made in the display to the US and its support for the Tbilisi Government. The guns are American as are the radios and the ready-to-eat-meals. I need the pictures because I'm working on a piece on US-Russia relations ahead of the first presidential debate. It's important because it sums up the distrust and antipathy between the two at the moment. And while one candidate is talking about Moscow in Cold War terms and his choice of Vice-President believes she has experience of Russia because she can see it from her house, the other candidate perhaps doesn't understand the complexities and layers of the relationship.
     Many of the Russians I talk to favour Obama because he would represent a break with Bush. But whoever wins, they must realise that their global agenda will be paralysed without Russia; no influence with Iran, problems in Afghanistan, no real pull with North Korea. Freezing Russia out doesn't work any more.

Photograph taken by the author

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