The dollar's slide is a hot topic in Russia these days, where the greenback can be traded on every street corner. Russians have routinely preferred dollars for their household savings and for many day-to-day transactions. They had good reason to distrust the Russian ruble, which crashed spectacularly in 1998.
But with the dollar sinking ever lower, Russians now look on the greenback with derision. It has slumped 12% against the ruble in the last year. Now Russians are rushing to dump their hoards of dollars and convert them into rubles -- pushing the ruble ever higher, and feeding central bank currency reserves, now a record $80 billion. A Feb. 2 poll showed that only 12% of Russians trust the dollar, compared with 51% who are putting their money on the sturdy ruble.
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