MOSCOW -- The most common word used by foreigners to describe Soviet Russia was "gray." Be it the cityscape, clothes or official culture, everything looked evenly unpleasant, unexciting, drab. Nowadays, the maddening communist evenness is gone, but Russia has become home to something equally disturbing -- outrageous gaps and contrasts in a society molded by unbridled young capitalism.
While retired people queue for hours to buy discount medicines, young executives sail yachts in the Mediterranean. Some people hop between sushi bars and French restaurants while others limit themselves to potatoes and bread. The poor draw from their meager salaries to pay taxes, the rich do not -- and so on.
Only a few years ago, however, the line separating the haves and the have-nots was gray: a yacht owner might live in a dreary Soviet apartment, a banker would buy his caviar in the outdoor market. But today the lifestyles of the rich and poor are totally separate.