The following is an exclusive translation from Vedomosti about the oncoming crisis of unemployment in Russia, for which the author subsequently got in a lot trouble for having published.

Scenario: Novocherkassk-2009

Yevgeny Gontmacher

06.11.2008, №210 (2232)

I’m not going to pretend I’ve got my very own version of «Day of the Oprichnik». Vladimir Sorokin — he’s a professional writer, who has already managed to do this brilliantly. I’ve got another genre: I would like to attempt to model a situation that may with ever greater probability be realized somewhere in the depths of Russia already in the nearest future. There can be many concrete causes: from an attempt by the local powers to save money on people (by the way, just a few days ago, people blocked off the main street in Barnaul several times, protesting against an attempt to monetize city benefits) to heating interruptions in the upcoming winter. But the economic crisis, into which Russia is sinking ever deeper, hints at new story lines as well.