MOSCOW -- The blackout that hit Moscow late last month wasn't any better or worse than others that have struck big cities recently, say New York in August 2003. It is the same old thing over and over again -- people stuck in subways and elevators, hospitals canceling lifesaving surgeries, crowds grimly dragging back home on foot as no public transportation is available.

A blackout can change your life instantaneously, particularly if you live in a metropolis. Residents dwelling on top floors suddenly stop bragging about their room with a view, reduced to total misery by elevator paralysis. Sometimes high-rises even lose their supply of running water, so one is unable to take a shower, flush a toilet or even fill a kettle. Coffee machines become as useless as Stone Age figurines, as do TVs, VCRs, and household gods like computers.

Be it America or Russia, public reaction to the calamity of a blackout is invariably freakishly odd. A horde of reporters will relate the breaking news to the public, a dozen playwrights will write dramatic pieces called "One Lady's Fright" or "Candle Night," hundreds of poets will flood literary magazines' desks with oeuvres depicting hollow city frames, and Hollywood agents will get 75 movie ideas, all developing the horrors of the recent blackout.