As Russia’s economic crisis deepens, hurting trading partners from Germany to Tajikistan, many will say Westerns sanctions have succeeded. It’s a classic stone soup — or, in the Russian tradition, axe cereal — story.
In this folktale, a wayfarer, usually a soldier, tricks a stingy host by saying he knows how to make a meal out of some inedible object, a stone or an axe. He starts boiling the thing in a pot, asks for one necessary ingredient, then another — potatoes, carrots, a bit of meat, some salt — until the host ends up sharing all she had in the …read more
Source: iPolitics
