While we were all panicking about Ebola and the Democrats' getting schooled in the midterms, the bottom dropped out of the Russian economy.

The ruble has been nosediving for weeks, despite the fact that the Russian Central Bank has spent some $40 billion over the last two months to prop it up. In January, you would have to shell out 32.86 rubles to buy one U.S. dollar. Through October, that number edged higher and higher into the thirties, prompting nervous jokes from Russians as they watched their national currency lose value before their eyes. By November 1, a Russian would need to scrape together over 43 rubles to buy one U.S. dollar, a drop of over 30 percent.

Every day since November 1 has brought new lows for the ruble. By Wednesday, the Russian Central Bank, which had been spending billions of its reserve dollars every day to prop up the Russian currency, announced it was no longer going to do so. It was going to let the ruble float. (Technically speaking, it said that it would “only” spend $350 million a day to prop up the ruble.)

The ruble promptly nosedived.

By Thursday, the ruble was dropping so fast that people started taking photos of the ubiquitous exchange rate signs around Moscow. Here’s Kirit Radia, the Moscow correspondent for ABC.