"In an economy that is half Dostoevskian gloom and half Kafkaesque absurdity, where it is unclear who, if anyone, is in charge, where most prices are fixed, but inflation is soaring by more than 100 percent a year, where staples like eggs and sugar cannot be found in stores, but are somehow hoarded in many homes, where people cry out for a market economy, but brand as criminal anyone who buys an object wholesale and then resells it at a hefty profit, it seems that only a worker of miracles can turn the economic morass into a Western-style success. ..."
-- The New York Times, Oct. 27, 1991, Page E3