The ruble has tanked over the past year, falling over 50% from 33 rubles to the dollar to 67 rubles at market open Friday. The collapse in the currency's value has helped drive up prices in the country, which is heavily reliant on imports, with inflation surging to 15% in January.

Now, it seems, it is affecting sentiment on the streets. Andrey Panov, a freelance columnist for Vedomosti, writes:

It is better to keep money in foreign currency (dollars more than euros as the US economy is doing better than the EU) and prepare for what many economists are already saying could be a return to the conditions of the 1990s ... It is better to take your savings, or at least a portion of them, out of the banks. Who can guarantee that what will happen next won't be a situation in which all foreign currency deposits are forcibly converted [into rubles] or frozen? After all, the black market in cash worked even in Soviet times.

Although Panov's article is an opinion piece and not necessarily representative of the broader mood in the country, it nevertheless speaks to a particular concern affecting the Russian urban middle class. In December, over 100 Muscovites took to the streets to demand help with foreign-currency mortgages as the ruble crisis forced up repayments, in many cases higher than their monthly salaries.