Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

If the 1990s had been terrible for Russia’s economy, the new millennium brought a period of recovery. Vladimir Putin, who was confirmed as president by a landslide election victory in May 2000, will forever claim credit for Russia’s restoration. In fact, the turnaround in Russia’s financial fortunes already had been initiated in 1999 by austere former Communist Yevgeny Primakov, Putin’s political mentor. The collapse in the external value of the ruble jolted Russia’s export industries into life and curbed imports. But the key driver of the recovery was the global boom in oil and other commodities, which began months after Putin took office in the latter half of 2000. From $9.57 per barrel in 1998, the spot price of Urals crude would soar by 2008 to $94 per barrel. It would have taken catastrophic mismanagement for the Russian economy and Russian public finances not to have flourished. The questions were who would benefit from the boom and how would it affect Russia’s relationship with the outside world.