Russian cooking is an acquired taste. Beetroot soup, fish eggs
and oatmeal porridge, washed down with a national drink some may
find a little like lighter fluid, may not be everyone's cup of tea.
But tastes change and if the observations of local lawyers are
anything to go by, Moscow's restaurants have never been more
popular.
This may not be a crucial sign of a feel-good factor in Russia
but just three years on from the chronic indigestion that followed
the rouble's collapse, Russia's stomach for reform has settled and
the country is pulling itself together. Between 1999 and 2000 the
price of oil, the lifeblood of Russia's economy, tripled, pouring
money into the state coffers allowing the country to make
substantial inroads into its $158 billion national debt.
Western governments, initially suspicious of the ex-KGB
man-turned Russian president Vladimir Putin now turn a blind-eye to
the government's less savoury activities and...