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Nobody could open a small business, because the business model didn't allow paying taxes and mob protection at the same time.
So there were no good medium-priced restaurants in Moscow that managed to stay open for longer than a couple of months. The thick-necked muscle bound young man in the shiny brand new leather jacket with the giant gun bulge under his arm eventually started showing up and then it would close.
You saw those guys everywhere a new business was struggling to its feet.
That was a horrible human defeat, it wasn't just an inconvenience for hungry ex-pats.
It got so bad, the local newspapers were reduced to issuing pleas for the Mafia to cut their protection fees so the neighborhood restaurant business could grow.
I guess I do have a lot of anger stored up about that. It felt really terrible reading about what happened to the restaurant owners who didn't pay up.
