On Monday I flew in to Moscow from three weeks of information-less bliss. I knew nothing of what had happened in the world since New Year. As we were driving into Moscow, the taxi driver turned on the TV news and I saw the ending bit of a story covering the stock market crisis.

On Tuesday morning I turned on my computer and one of the first entries in my Friends' Page at LiveJournal read: "So, is this the Black Tuesday?" After the Asian markets closed 4-5 percent lower on Monday, the Russian stock market had shown the largest negative growth since June 2006, returning to the level of 2,000 points, last seen in September 2007. As the U.S. markets were closed on Monday due to a national holiday, everybody was waiting for their reaction on Tuesday. The U.S. market did not disappoint with a morning plunge, which immediately prompted the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates by 0.75 percent in an effort to stop the U.S. economy from sliding into recession, fueled by the real estate market crisis.

The talk everywhere is of the U.S. recession and not even President Bush's economic plan to boost the failing economy seems to be doing enough to dispel the fears. After months of talking about possible negative effects of the mortgage market crisis that hit the United States last year people are actually seeing these results. Consequential downslide in the Asian economies, for which the United States is the principal trading partner, is understandable.

Why it would affect Europe, another of Washington's major trade partners, is perfectly clear as well. But why the U.S. recession would affect the Russian economy, which is more or less isolated from the American one, is harder to grasp. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the U.S. market almost rebounded back in its late Tuesday trading and despite the fact that the Russian market started Wednesday with a growth, experts continue to warn that the growth won't be for long and that there is no limit to how low the market can go in the coming months.

On Tuesday, the Association of Russian Banks held a joint press conference featuring its President Garegin Tosunyan and Central Bank Deputy Chairman Konstantin Korischenko. Both officials agreed it was completely natural that the serious negative processes in the global economy would affect Russia's economy. They did however try to express cautious optimism at Russia's ability to overcome this challenge and called on the government to take the necessary steps to secure that.

I am torn between the two views. On the one hand I do not understand why Russian investors would prefer to govern their actions by negative news from abroad rather than by positive news from home. After all, the Russian economy is growing ahead of projections, oil prices show no signs of falling and the general feeling is that of stability.

On the other hand, I understand that even though the U.S. is no major trading partner for Russia, a downfall in its economy would cause general failure on the global markets. And Russia is a part of global markets. Russian banks have enjoyed the opportunity to loan cheap money there, opportunity that they now might lose. If the recession comes, the oil prices will surely fall, if not now, then in several months' time. The signs are not good and the investors may be right in pulling out of the stocks.

But in the end, the way I see it is this. I do not believe in the possibility of a major global recession - especially the one capable of bringing Russia with its current 6-7 percent annual growth into the negative growth area. But I do hope that this threat, which had been epitomized by the Black Mon-day/Tuesday scare, will do something to humble those who believe that the Russian economy is strong enough to demand for itself a place at the top of the global economic pantheon.

The Russian economy has come a long way in becoming one of the pillars of global economic growth, and it won't make any progress while its banking system is weak and underdeveloped and its GDP primarily depends on exports of oil and gas. Let's hope that the stock market scare will send yet another signal to the government that it is time to stop talking about change and diversification and start actually doing something about it.

By Marina Pustilnik