Up to 2 million Russian citizens may be engaged in shuttle trade and the value of "gray" goods may be as high as $10 billion annually. Goods from Turkey alone amounted in 2002 to $1.5-2 billion, according to then vice-premier Viktor Khristenko, but shuttle traders also operate in the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. A set of figures published for the first quarter of 2001 shows that shuttle trade amounted to $2.6 billion, or 8 percent of Russia's total foreign trade. Shuttle traded goods made up 1.5 percent of exports - but a full quarter of imports. But the shuttle trade's coup de grace may well be EU enlargement. Already a new "iron curtain", comprised of visas and regulations, is rising between EU candidates and other East European and Balkan countries. Consider the EU's eastern boundary. More than a million people cross the busy Ukrainian-Polish border every month. Enhanced regulation on the Polish side and new, IMF-inspired, tax laws on the Ukrainian side - led to a massive increase in corruption and smuggling. Truck owners now bribe customs officials to the tune of $300 per vehicle, according to a January 2001 report by CEPS. The results are grave. Following the introduction of these new measures, cross border traffic fell by 50 percent and unemployment in the Polish border zones jumped by 40 percent in 2002 alone. It has since doubled. The IMF and the EU are much decried by the Polish minority now trapped in Western Ukraine. The situation is likely to be further exacerbated with the introduction of a reciprocal visa regime between the two countries. Shuttle trade may be decimated by the resulting bureaucratic bottlenecks. Still, it may no longer be needed now that Poland acceded to the EU. Shuttle trade thrives on poverty. It arbitrates between inefficient markets. It satisfies unrequited demand for goods. The single market ought to rid Europe of all these distortions - and, thus, most probably of this makeshift though resilient solution, the shuttle trader. XXVI. The Blessings of the Black Economy Some call it the "unofficial" or "informal" economy, others call it the "grey economy" but the old name fits it best: the "black economy". In the USA "black" means "profitable, healthy" and this is what the black economy is. Macedonia should count its blessings for having had a black economy so strong and thriving to see it through the transition. If Macedonia had to rely only on its official economy it would have gone bankrupt long ago.