The collapse of the Soviet state left a terrible roster of social, economic, and ecological troubles to the first freely-elected Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. As national output fell, a sizable part of the bureaucracy, which controlled state goods, merged with the criminal class, which knew how to convert those goods into money. Coupled with political instability, the criminalization of the economy has made it even harder for Russia to address its long-term problems--especially the poisoned air, water, and land bequeathed by Communist industrial plans.
