Pray, attend to this most curious affair emanating from the distant, frost-bitten wastes of Yakutia! It appears that the local government, in a fit of sudden prudence, has seen fit to impose most rigorous limitations upon the sale of fuel at the stations of the 'Sakhaneftegazsbyt' enterprise. One can only imagine the consternation of the local carriage-drivers and motoring gentlemen upon discovering that their tanks could no longer be filled to overflowing at their own fancy.

In the districts of Neryungrinsk, Aldan, and even within the city of Yakutsk itself, a strict decree has been issued: no more than thirty litres of petrol, or two hundred of diesel, shall be dispensed to a single vehicle. Furthermore, the act of filling portable canisters—that favourite tool of the opportunistic rogue—has been banned entirely!

"In these days, we have observed certain gentlemen of a most acquisitive nature purchasing fuel in vast quantities of canisters," declared Mr. Dmitry Lepchikov, the Minister of Civil Defence, with the air of a man who has caught a pickpocket in the act. "To thwart these speculators and prevent the creation of an artificial famine of fuel, we must introduce these limits."

Indeed, the spirit of the profiteer is a restless beast! Such measures have already been adopted in forty regions of the Empire. In Crimea and Sevastopol, the restrictions are of a most draconian nature, where the common private citizen is barred from the pumps entirely, unless he be in the employ of the safety and security services.

It is whispered in the clubs that the Sovereign himself, Mr. Vladimir Putin, convened a grand assembly on the twenty-eighth of June to address the stability of the fuel market. He noted, with a stern countenance, that the current challenges demand systemic measures—essentially informing every aspiring commercialist and rogue that the era of easy lucre from fuel speculation is, for the moment, at an end. One suspects many a merchant, dreaming of a tidy profit, has seen his hopes vanish like mist over the Thames.