In late 1994, when MMM collapsed, Hoper-Invest also stopped paying out, and the ruble lost nearly a quarter of its value overnight. All three events were to some extent related to something that had happened earlier in the year: the government relaxed its monetary policy and began printing rubles—this was a boon to the pyramid schemes, and it also doomed the ruble to fall.15 Many Russians’ core beliefs were thus confirmed: the government was no more trustworthy than the self-anointed investment kings, and economic hardship and injustice were life’s only certainties.
