Great Power Industry: You're a private company building an aircraft carrier?

The speaker was a young man in his early twenties, quite tall but somewhat thin, with a camera hanging around his neck. He was anxiously rummaging through his pockets, but there were no coins left.

Qin Chuan casually took out two coins from his pocket and handed them to the other person.

"for you!"

"Thank you!" The other person quickly put the coin into the phone and continued talking into it.

"Hello, please rest assured, I really am a reporter from the News. Our News is the most famous media outlet in all of Russia. We would like to interview Mr. Sunil..."

He didn't say much before the phone beeped again, so he inserted a second coin.

"What? How would I know? Well, we journalists have our own principles and can't reveal our sources. But you Indians came to the Northern Shipyard for an inspection, don't you want to publicize it in our country? This is a testament to our friendship! This will definitely be tomorrow's headline! What? Hello, hello, hello!"

The other party had already hung up the phone. The young man shook his head helplessly, then walked out of the phone booth and found that the person who had just borrowed coins was still there!

"Thank you for the coin. Oh, and here's a ruble. Keep the change..." He took out the banknote and was about to leave quickly.

"Ahem. How can that be?"

The young man sized Qin Chuan up a few more times: "Reselling coins is illegal, you..."

This 15-kopek coin is worth much more than 15 kopeks!

In Russia, inflation is rampant and prices are soaring. Countless people are trying to make money in various ways, and they soon discover that they can also make money by trading currency!

Nowadays, even 100 rubles don't last long, let alone the kopek, which is a smaller denomination than the ruble. However, the 15-kopek coin is hard currency because it's the only thing you can use to make a phone call! All payphones in Russia only accept 15-kopek coins!

Before the price went up, you could just drop in one 15-kopek coin per minute. Now, you have to drop in six coins per minute! One every ten seconds! So if someone is on the street making a phone call, they have to keep dropping coins in. But these coins aren't worth much, and few people carry a lot of coins. What if they're in a hurry?

People who specialize in selling coins appeared. They would go to the post office to exchange 200 15-kopek coins, then wander around and sell them for five rubles each if they found someone in urgent need!

At this point, the young man clearly mistook Qin Chuan for a coin dealer. If it had been a tall, burly Russian, he might have accepted it, but this was just an Asian man, so…

Giving you one ruble is already very generous. If you're particularly greedy, don't blame me for reporting you to the police. The police love arresting you Asian-looking smugglers!

"No. I gave the coin away for free." Qin Chuan said, "It's fate that we met. By the way, I just heard you say that the Indian was inspecting a shipyard in the north?"

The young man immediately became alert, looking Qin Chuan up and down: "What else did you hear? You..."

"Brother, don't worry, I just think there's a reason why the Indian guy refused to be interviewed by you."

"what reason?"

"Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, your domestic economy has been declining all the way down, and inflation is severe. What used to be a minute's phone call with one coin can now only last a few seconds. At this time, if India is really your friend, it should pay back the more than 10 billion it owes you, instead of coming here to take advantage of your misfortune."

"The Indians owe us over 10 billion?" the young man exclaimed in surprise.

"You don't know this? There's a coffee shop up ahead. How about we go in, have some coffee, and talk about this?"

"Okay, by the way, let me introduce myself. I'm a reporter from the Izvestia newspaper, and my name is Spartacus."

“What an interesting name. My name is… my Russian name is Alexander.”

Spartacus then looked at Yang Xue, who was standing next to Qin Chuan.

“Lyudmila, you can call me Liu Xia.”

“You are very beautiful,” Spartacus said. “Come on, let me treat you to coffee, and we can chat over coffee.”

The coffee shop wasn't very crowded; after all, most Russians prefer vodka.

"Three cups of coffee, please."

"Five hundred rubles in total."

Spartacus began reaching into his pocket: "Five hundred rubles, right? Wait, let me look..."

Qin Chuan, who was standing to the side, took out a one-dollar bill: "I'll pay, keep the change, consider it your tip."

"Thank you, sir!" The pretty coffee shop waitress couldn't help but wink at Qin Chuan. If Yang Xue hadn't been with Qin Chuan, she probably would have thrown herself into his arms.

Spartacus breathed a sigh of relief: "You're too kind, I'll treat you next time!"

The three sat by the window, Yang Xue quietly stirring her coffee with a straw while listening to the conversation between the two men.

"Alexander, what exactly are you talking about?"

"This dates back to the 2s, specifically February 2, 1955, when your two countries signed the loan agreement for the Bile Steel Plant. After that, India kept asking you for aid, and over that time, you provided India with as much as one billion US dollars in aid!"

Alexander's mouth dropped open: "So many?"

"That's right. Back then, you provided aid to a total of 28 countries, with India receiving the most. Even the Marshall Plan, when the United States provided aid to Germany, only amounted to about one billion US dollars."

Qin Chuan continued, "However, India did not become an industrial powerhouse like Germany. They are still constantly requesting your aid. With your assistance, India has built a complete industrial system, including petroleum, chemicals, steel, metallurgy, electricity, automobiles, machinery manufacturing, textiles, electronics and communications, and computer industries..."

"By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, India had received over 14 billion US dollars in aid, and they had only repaid less than 2 billion US dollars. The rest is still owed! Now that your economy is in a slump, if India were to repay this money..."

“If those Indians pay back this money, our economy will improve immediately!” Spartacus said angrily. “They owe us so much money and haven’t paid it back, it’s outrageous! This time…”

"Your leaders are certainly urging the Indians to repay the money. The Indians came here this time to discuss repayment. However, they went too far. They actually demanded repayment in rubles, and in rubles at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. That means that hundreds of billions of dollars only need to be repaid in hundreds of thousands of dollars..."

Bang!

Spartacus clenched his fist and slammed it heavily on the table: "These damned Indians, they're awful!"

"Yes, they failed to reach an agreement in Moscow, so they wanted to come here and snatch up two Type 956 destroyers to take back. They still intend to pay with Soviet-era rubles..."

"Hmph, no wonder they wouldn't accept my interview. So that's what they were up to. Hmph, I'm not going to do the interview either. I'm going back to write a report and I'm going to show the whole world the ugly face of these Indians!"