She was a single mother with four children and her own shop. One night everything went up in smoke.

It is 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. This is the story of the New Russia.

MOSCOW: The cold bit her in the face as she ran through the city. It was an icy January evening with temperatures down to -12. But inside Maria Trukhina it boiled. She ran what she could from the apartment, where her first four prides in life slept, to her latest pride: her shop.

In the windows usually hung delicate women’s panties, bras and solid everyday clothes from Germany. The business went so smoothly. Local journalists had called her a pioneer a year ago.

But now, January 17, 1995, she ran what she could, towards her life’s work.

The first thing she felt was the smell. Then she saw all the people and the fire trucks. Finally she saw how the flames stretched from the ground floor, through the shop and up to the sky.