In addition to the oil and currency markets, analysts were focusing on the financial situation and the possibility of corporate and bank failures. “Because of this panic and uncertainty, there could be a liquidity crisis in the coming weeks and months,” said Sergei M. Guriev, a prominent economist who fled into exile last year.

There were no signs of a broad public panic, no lines at banks or money exchange points. But that might have been because some of them were charging as much as 100 rubles per dollar. (News reports suggested that there might be a run on new signs for exchange shops because the current ones are designed for two digits, not three.)

Given the level of corruption and bribery here, not to mention the congenital distrust of state institutions, in normal times all manner of Russians stow rubles at home. Now, most are anxious to dispose of those stashes any way they can. One Kazakh man was seen walking around a Jaguar dealership, which like several luxury brands had run out of cars, with a little rolling suitcase full of cash. Sales were up 50 percent this month, a manager said.

Young urban professionals in Moscow earn roughly 80,000 rubles a month on average. Before the crisis, that was worth $2,500, plenty of money for them to meet basic living expenses and enough to still spend free time in Europe. As of Tuesday, those salaries had dwindled to around $1,000, leaving those who had already bought airplane tickets wondering how to pay for the rest of the vacation.

At the Apple store in the AviaPark mall, Sergey Akimov, a 22-year-old technology worker, said his dreams of foreign travel had evaporated, so he was spending the money on a new iPhone 6, selling in rubles for considerably less than its American price of $650 because of the rapidly depreciating exchange rate. “This is instead of my vacation,” he said, smiling. The store raised prices during the day as the currency slid.

As always, many Russians responded to the crisis with stoicism and some dark humor. “If you could change anything about your past, what would it be?” went one joke. “Rubles” was the response.