What did Russia’s last severe fuel crisis look like? Rewind to the 1990s, the decade Putin calls ‘hungry, cold, and hopeless.’

Russia is experiencing a fuel crisis. In scale and severity, it can only be compared to the early 1990s, when the country faced gasoline shortages, restrictions on fuel sales, lines at gas stations, and failed price controls. And yes, this is precisely the era that Russian propaganda uses as a contrast to the present. Putin himself has repeatedly spoken about the 1990s, calling the years “terrible, hungry, cold, and hopeless.” Meduza has selected a series of photographs to recall what that pe...