Tatiana and Masha had its two rooms and a kitchen all to themselves, but now Tatiana was being harassed by the reketiry—a new Russian word that meant “racketeers”—a mafia in the making that was trying to ride on the coattails of private enterprise in the making. Most of these guys ran primitive protection rackets, promising to be the krysha—cover—that would shield you from others like them. Lately they had established a permanent post outside Tatiana’s apartment door. She did not want to go there with her child, so they went to Tatiana’s parents’ apartment instead.
The evolution of post-Soviet Russian into a "mobocracy", expressed here at the ground level.
