Straws in the wind

Recently the number of metro payment tokens available for sale in St. Petersburg has been restricted.

Residents of Putin's home town, quite sensibly, had been trying to protect themselves from further collapse of the ruble by panic buying huge numbers of these tokens.

These residents know that their government is powerless to halt the fall of the ruble and resultant inflation - and by limiting sale of these tokens is merely providing tangible confirmation of this.

Eventually such a seemingly trivial series of events can turn out to be a last straw that can even trigger revolution..