Very often the most striking analysis of Russia's economic policy comes not in serious business newspapers such as Kommersant but in Kukli, Russian television's equivalent of Spitting Image. If the IMF's managing director, Mr Michel Camdessus, understands Russian and the Russian sense of humour, he might have managed a grim smile at a recent episode shown before this week's partial deal to provide extra assistance to the country's parlous economy.
Kukli showed the entire Russian political establishment enjoying dinner at a plush restaurant in the Swiss Alps near Davos. Foie gras and caviar were accompanied by Chateau Lafite and Meursault.
When the waiter came with the bill the Russian response was as follows: "We are bankrupt. We have no cash. But if you lend us the money to pay the bill we will pay your grandchildren back in 50 years time." In the end the waiter mortgaged his house and paid up.
The IMF has been nearly as generous to Russia in the past as the waiter was on the satirical show. This has been especially so when one considers that much of its financial assistance simply went missing and some, it now seems likely, was used for a short-term investment, the interest on which was used to help President Yeltsin to be re-elected in 1996.
While no details have been announced officially, the deal struck between Russia and the IMF this week appears to provide for loans of $2.7 billion (#2.5 billion) per year - the very minimum figure to satisfy Russian needs. Having rubbed his nose in it over Kosovo, the west had to provide something to ease Russian Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov's, political discomfort.
The amount may not be enough to solve the problems of ordinary Russians, especially the emerging middle class which was virtually wiped out in the August financial crisis.
Natalia's plight is a good example. She runs a translation agency and a Russian-language school for foreigners and had just begun to trust western-style financial institutions when the economy, and the banking system, collapsed.
Her life savings of $10,000 which she plucked up the courage to deposit in a Russian bank has now been lost. Natalia has started again from scratch and is fortunate enough to have a business whose clients are mainly westerners and pay in hard currency and on time.
Further up the scale new billionaires such as Mr Vladimir Potanin, once a poorly-paid deputy prime minister, have seen their empires crumble but are not complaining too much. Last year Forbes magazine rated Mr Potanin's fortune at $1.5 billion. Now, following the collapse of his Unixembank, he has to rely on his personal investments. Mr Potanin has cash and chutzpah. In a brazen move he told the state he would like to give it back two industries he had privatised. The state, not surprisingly, refused. Then he held an incredibly lavish party in Switzerland for his friends. Asked if this was not extravagant considering his financial ruin he replied: "you have to live a normal life".
There are others less wealthy than Mr Potanin, but who can afford some luxuries. The wine shop at the corner of the street where I hire my apartment has a five-litre bottle of Chateau Haut Brion in the window. I was told it was not for sale. But the discerning Russian could buy a bottle of Midleton Special Reserve Irish Whiskey for $200 or splash out on a bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild for just short of $1,000.
It is at those who can afford such luxuries that the government has aimed a series of advertisements featuring an apparently undernourished elderly woman appealing for people to pay their taxes so that her pension will be paid. The elderly, those who suffered so badly in the second World War, are those who have been asked to suffer again and a new plan by Moscow City to boost the stock exchange is unlikely to ease their plight.
The idea is that significant tax breaks will be made available to Muscovites who are prepared to take their money out from under the mattress and invest in the economy. In Russia such ventures have led inevitably to significant tax loopholes.
Still there are some bright spots. General Motors has announced in the past week that it has signed a memorandum for a $200 million joint-venture with LogoVaz, the manufacturer of the ponderous Volga saloon, to produce Opel cars in Togliatti, a town 500 miles south east of Moscow, and last month foreign investors returned to the Moscow stock exchange to provide its first rally since the crash.
