Along Beijing's Xiushui Street, merchants in makeshift metal stands plaintively urge shoppers to buy jade-green grapes, bright red Coca-Cola sportswear and Begonia Flower-brand silk lingerie. A balding trader, waving a fan, hawks Christian Dior-label shirts. They cost 100 yuan ($27) abroad, he confides, but his price is only 25 yuan ($6). A real bargain. The yellow license in his stall identifies him as a ge ti hu (private entrepreneur), who sells his wares on the free market.
At Moscow's Arbat pedestrian mall, evening strollers cluster around a young guitarist. The music has stopped, and the passersby follow a heated argument between...
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