Looking back, 2007 was a fine year. A fat year, thanks to petrodollars, with a barrel of Russian oil selling for 120 dollars in futures trading. Russian oligarchs were beginning to lose their minds from all the wealth and luxury. As we say in Russian, “going crazy from the fat”.

Case in point, I recently got my hands on on a copy of RBK Magazine from the year 2007. Wedged in between all the advertisements for luxury automobiles and breathtakingly expensive watches, was an article about how «Russians are becoming ever richer and richer». (Here too, by the way, was an assertion/admonition from director of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ruslan Greenberg about how the powerful influx of currency into the country “is allowing us to commit a maximum of mistakes” (now we know that all these mistakes were indeed committed). Moving on, an article about how the Americans have unleashed against Russia an anti-Russian “media hysteria.”

Three articles, one after the other, dedicated to the travels of Russians (it must be assumed – wealthy ones) for rest beyond the border. There is, naturally, articles about real estate and billionaires, interviews with the bankers and the capitalists of the new Russia (one of them, as an example, brags that his company is getting 200-300 million dollars a month).

And, finally, an article “Delightsome piggishness.” This one is particularly noteworthy today, against a background of swine flu marching its way across the planet.