It was spring 1997. As a gender trained Swedish citizen I was on a two months parental leave with my 10 months old son. It had been two rewarding months of hard work. The leave was coming to an end.

Meanwhile in the distant Russia, municipalities had started to take up loans from international financing institutions for badly needed investments in the municipal infrastructure. The investments had once been made rather intelligently according to the conditions at the time. E g energy was almost free of charge while building and insulation materials were expensive. So it had once been decided. The market was still to come.