ALMOST 500km (310 miles) separate Moscow, Russia’s glittering capital, from its lesser-known namesake, a dying village deep in the forests of the Tverskaya Oblast. The road that connects them begins as smooth asphalt beside the red walls of the Kremlin and ends as a rutted dirt track amid abandoned wooden homes. The characters that populate the towns and cities along the way often live very different lives. But as Russia’s recession deepens (the country’s GDP shrank by 4.6% in the second quarter measured year-on-year), the effects resonate across every stratum of society.

Inflation has eaten away at family budgets. Falling oil revenues have forced the government to tighten its belt (with the notable exception of defence spending). While many struggle, there is one constant: rather than panicking, Russians adjust. Memories of earlier crises loom—a reminder of how much worse it can get. Nationalist rhetoric serves as a healing balm. People push on. “Russia’s great strength throughout the centuries has been that its people can seemingly adapt to any conditions,” says Maria Lipman, a political analyst.

It is Monday morning in the capital, and a snappily dressed businessman sips a grande cappuccino, flipping through messages on his iPhone 6 in a Starbucks near Red Square. Pavel, who owns a chain of coffee shops, normally takes his family to South-East Asia for winter holidays, but not this year. “You start to think, for that much money, do I really need Thailand?” At IKEA, a furniture shop, in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, once the beacon of an emerging middle class, Stanislav Vladikov says the recession means waiting to buy a washing machine. But he takes it in his stride. “2009 was much worse,” he says.

Car dealerships nearby see few buyers. In the first half of the year auto sales were down by 36%. Foreign carmakers such as GM and Toyota have ceased or scaled down operations. Smaller businesses feel the pinch, too. Gary Mkrtchyan, an Armenian, runs a store selling fountains and lawn ornaments. An eclectic ensemble of concrete lions, plastic dinosaurs and stone maidens crowds his yard. After ten years in business, he will close on September 1st. “No one is buying this stuff any more,” he says. “Now people have to eat.” Real disposable income dropped by 3.1% year-on-year in the first two quarters. Retail sales have fallen for seven months in a row.

The slowdown actually started three years ago, Mr Mkrtchyan says. Nonetheless, he, like many in Russia, sees no link between political leadership and economic woes. “Putin is a hero,” he says.

Others point to a corrupt system that stifles commerce. At a dimly lit café near the border of the Moscow region, Nikolai Kuznetsov, a retired policeman turned lorry driver, fumes. He has just paid yet another bribe to avoid having his cargo (frozen Brazilian meat) impounded. “They’re becoming more and more brazen,” he says of his erstwhile colleagues.

For Mr Kuznetsov, the combined effect of the government’s ban on imported Western food and the collapse of the currency has been devastating. Fewer imports mean fewer trips. Rather than laying off people, employers are cutting pay. His salary has fallen by nearly half since last year. “What’s going on here is dark, and it will get darker still,” he says, scratching at the vinyl tablecloth. He no longer takes naps in his cabin, fearing thieves who steal tyres and siphon off petrol, crimes that had all but disappeared during the boom.

Further north, heading towards Tver, birch trees loom over the highway and dense urban life gives way to sprawling valleys. Russia’s economy has always been a story of centre and periphery: power and money are concentrated in Moscow, with the Kremlin sitting in the middle. Most regions survive thanks to federal support. Last year 75 of Russia’s 85 regions ran budget deficits. Earlier this year, unprofitable suburban rail services in Tver briefly shut down as the regional government and the state-owned Russian Railways bickered over who would foot the bill. It took direct intervention from Mr Putin to get the trains running again. This week Vladimir Yakunin, head of the Russian Railways and a longtime confidant of Mr Putin, unexpectedly resigned. Closer to the other Moscow, the highway narrows to two lanes. Fruit stands overflowing with watermelons line the approach to Kuvshinovo, a “monogorod” or company town, built around a massive paper and cardboard mill. “If the factory didn’t exist, the city would turn into a hamlet,” says Aleksei Tsoi, the mill’s director of personnel. That worries the central government, as some 10% of Russia’s population lives in such cities, and funds to support them are drying up. The government has classified 94 of its 314 monogorods as “red zones” at risk of economic collapse, up from 75 last year. Mr Tsoi insists the mill is doing fine. Three years ago it got a new cardboard-making machine (the “most powerful of its kind in all of Russia,” he boasts). The four other machines on the factory floor are ageing behemoths. One came from Germany as reparations after the second world war and is more than 100 years old. Beyond Kuvshinovo, Russia’s vastness comes into focus. Signs warn drivers to look out for deer. Lone women by the side of the road sell jars of berries and mushrooms. The asphalt ends some 40km before Moscow. A path snakes through dense forest and quiet logging camps. Industrial production in Russia dropped 4.7% in July, the sixth straight month of decline.

In the Soviet era, life in little Moscow revolved around a bustling agricultural collective called Red Star. “We had stores, and even a club,” says Anna Stepanova, one of four remaining residents. Since then the farm has fallen into disrepair. Young people have left. As the elderly die off, they leave behind handmade wooden homes with dishes still stacked on shelves.

Inflation stuns the residents. “When I saw the price of sugar, I lost my mind,” says Ms Stepanova, a former “cultural worker”. A daughter brings supplies from a nearby town. She has stopped buying imported Spanish glaucoma medicine, which she needs, and plans to switch to a cheaper Russian one.

Ms Stepanova gets her news from a small television that picks up only two channels, both state-run. Her husband says he preferred life in the Soviet Union, but he approves of Mr Putin because pensions are paid on time, and “every year they get higher and higher.” That may soon change. Russia’s finance ministry recently suggested ending inflation-pegging of pensions to help close a growing fiscal gap. Yet no matter how bad it gets, a flock of chickens and an expansive garden with rows of potatoes, beets, cucumbers and onions offer insurance. After the second world war “we survived on grass,” says Ms Stepanova. “Russia will survive whatever happens now.”