The current figures make Russia's economy look like a Slavic Tiger. Economic growth is forecast at 7 per cent for the second consecutive year and the rouble for the past year has been rock steady at 28 to the dollar. Inflation is falling too, with this year's figure expected to level out at 12 per cent. If that sounds high, it should be remembered that in 1992 the figure reached 2,500 per cent.

Resolution of Soviet-era debt could boost Russia's image further and a team of IMF experts has just begun a two-week visit to Moscow with this in mind.

Ever since the economic collapse in August 1998, Russia's economy has been on the rise. At that time, the rouble fell from six to 24 to the dollar and a new realism took over. Local industries began to produce good-quality substitutes for expensive foreign imports and oil prices began to rise. As a result, the country has, for the past two years, experienced an unprecedented economic boom.

The signs of this are to be seen on the streets. Hundreds of expensive new theme restaurants have mushroomed throughout Moscow. Even the old Soviet-era Volga Hotel has sprouted an elegant, palm-lined conservatory and sleek Mercedes and BMWs bowl around the inner ring road once the preserve of the Lada. But now there are warnings of a hard landing. Those who claim the same may happen in Ireland would do well to watch what happens in Russia, particularly if high oil prices - which has powered Russia's economic performance - are removed from the mix.

Mr Yuri Kobaladze, managing director of Moscow investment house Renaissance Capital, is worried. "Things are getting tough. It is extremely difficult to attract foreign investment because investors worry about Russia. The rules keep changing. There's no stability," he said.

Mr Kobaladze is one of the world's most unusual capitalists. In an earlier incarnation, he was known ostensibly as Radio Moscow's correspondent in London. In fact, he was a high-ranking KGB officer running a team of Britons who spied on their country. He ended up at the top of his profession with the rank of general at a time when President Putin was a mere lieutenant colonel.

Over lunch in the smart "Uley" (Beehive) restaurant in north central Moscow, with its fusion of Asian and European cuisines, Mr Kobaladze was at his witty best. "When will things settle down here?" I asked. "Come back to me in 200 years," came the reply.

All he same, he is happy in his new job. "I earn more money in business that I used to do working for the state," he said. Low state wages were, he said, a major part of the problem. The police get paid pittances so they take bribes. Civil servants are on the take because their salaries are not enough to live on. Corruption is rampant.

So too is bureaucracy. "Even in private concerns, the old trend toward bureaucracy is evident. There are lots of people walking around big office blocks carrying briefcases and looking important but actually they are doing nothing."

President Putin's economic adviser, Mr Andrei Illarionov, was even more explicit in his criticism of government economic policy. Mr Illarionov was the only economist to forecast the economic crash in 1998.

In a speech to Moscow's European Business Club, he described Prime Minister Mr Mikhail Kasyanov's policies as economic "hooliganism". Signalling a default on debt repayments to the Paris Club of Creditors was, in his view, disastrous for Russia's image. It was, he said, "like stealing handsets from telephone boxes or relieving oneself in the stairwell".

"The economic party is over," he said, "the hangover has just begun."

Even Soviet-era economists, such as Central Bank chairman Mr Viktor Gerashchenko and chairman of the Federation Council (parliament's upper house) Mr Yegor Stroyev, have strongly urged the government to pay its debts to the Paris Club in full. President Putin has ordered this to be done.

The country's two leading bankers, Mr Pyotr Aven and Mr Mikhail Fridman, have entered the fray. Their Alfa Bank company and its offshoots managed to survive the 1998 crash, which wiped out many competitors.

While both were cautious in their criticism of the government and disagreed strongly with Mr Illarionov's personal attack on Mr Kasyanov, they were not very optimistic. "Our position is closer to that of Illarionov," Mr Aven said in an interview with the Moscow Times. Mr Fridman said Mr Kasyanov's decision to skip Paris Club payments was "not the best of choices".

"With a windfall of profits reinvested in new production facilities, the oil industry may expand output by another 5 to 6 per cent in 2001, boosting the rest of the economy through a multiplier effect," Mr Aven said. But it was clear that the economic boom is gradually losing steam.

Both of them also supported Mr Illarionov's views on a plan to revamp Russia's national electricity grid, Unified Energy Systems (UES). Headed by Mr Anatoly Chubais, whose loans-for-shares scheme in privatised state companies is blamed in part for the 1998 crash, UES is in a poor state, with many areas of the country without electricity at a time when temperatures in Siberian cities have fallen to minus 57 degrees.

Mr Chubais's restructuring plan has been under sharp attacks from Mr Illarionov and others, and Mr Fridman and Mr Aven have joined the fray.