Byline: IAN THOMAS

FOR teachers struggling to make ends meet, it was a harsh lesson in Russian economics.

Instead of finding roubles in their monthly pay packets, staff in a remote region of the country were presented with 15 bottles of vodka each.

This 'payment' puts a teacher's worth at less than [pounds sterling]20 a month in a country where inflation has soared from single figures to almost 50 per cent in six weeks.

The only consolation for the teachers of the Altai region in southern Siberia was that the impoverished local council had dropped its original plan for paying classroom staff. At one stage it had considered offering coffins or toilet paper to meet part of a pay backlog.

The plight of Russia's teachers and other state workers highlights the crisis facing the Kremlin as the country's economic crisis worsens.

Even ex-KGB staff at the Lubyanka in Moscow are feeling the pinch.

They have publicly complained about their wages not being met.

The teachers in Altai almost 2,000 miles east of Moscow - were told the Kremlin would send money in August. But the cash never arrived. …