In a stuffy bazaar in the heart of old Istanbul, Larisa, a Russian woman in her early 40s, cautiously fingers a plain cotton blouse that threatens to fall apart in her hands. The shop assistant hovering beside her offers to sell the blouse for $5, even though the price tag reads $69.90. The label identifies the item as Italian, but it is actually made in Turkey. "Labels are no problem," the assistant explains in his eagerness to make a sale. "You name it, we have it. Italian, French, whatever you want." Larisa is sorely tempted. In the street markets of Russia such a blouse would definitely pass as a genuine Italian product and could sell at the suggested retail price. But there are plenty more shops to visit, and she must save every penny for a better bargain.

Larisa once worked as a chemical engineer. Now she earns a living by "shuttle trading." Like thousands of other ordinary Russians who cannot make ends meet on their official salaries, she regularly travels to inexpensive foreign venues to buy cheap, low-quality consumer goods for resale back home at a hefty profit. Shuttle trading was born of hard economic necessity back in the early 1990s, when neophyte Russian tourists returned home with suitcases full of goods long missing from store shelves. Since then, it has grown into a major cottage industry. Last year Russia's official imports were valued at $19 billion. But Deputy Economics Minister Sergei Vasilyev estimates that another $8 billion worth of goods were brought in just by shuttle traders.

About half that merchandise, by some estimates, comes from Turkey, which tops the list of favored sources. Business is so brisk that a ship that was once the pride of the Soviet ocean-exploration fleet, the Professor Zubov, has been converted into a floating shuttle trader. With its laboratories turned into cargo holds, the ship ferries consumer goods between Istanbul and the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. Istanbul airport even has a special terminal built for shuttle traders arriving from the former Soviet Union. Shopping tourists have only to pay $10 for a visa sticker in their passports, allowing them a cheap entry into the brave new world of risk and profit. As one visitor from Moscow wryly puts it, "Why did we ever fight Turkey for the Straits? Shuttle traders have accomplished the same end."

In the Laleli district in the historic center of Istanbul, Russian obscenities can be heard mixing with the persistent cries of a Turk selling a cherry-colored drink from a metal jug, twice his size, on his back. Turkish women, clad in traditional long overcoats, their faces tightly covered with kerchiefs, squeeze past beefy Russian blonds in tight-fitting shorts, buying up piles of cloth slippers at $2 a pair. The amplified call to prayer from a muezzin in a nearby mosque is all but ignored by shopkeepers, eager to do business with the big-spending hordes from the north.

Shuttle traders are careful to weigh their acquisitions on street-corner scales, since shipping companies charge steep prices for any overweight bundles. Whatever possible is carried aboard the plane by hand. Veteran shopping tourists are closemouthed about their profits-after all, who wants the tax police to know? But Igor, a young, black-bearded Moscow student who has bought 4,000 cotton dresses for $4.80 each, says a $1 profit on each item purchased abroad is a good enough return. Volodya, a former Soviet army officer in his early 50s who is making his fourth Turkish tour, offers the following advice: "If you want a profit, you sell each item at 10 times the price in rubles for what you bought it in dollars."

The markup, Volodya says, is necessary, given what traders have to pay out along the way home from Turkey "to customs, cops, transport officials, racketeers, the lot." There are no firm official guidelines for how much customs-duty inspectors should charge on goods exceeding the $2,000 duty-free limit, so shuttle traders must use all their negotiating skills to keep the levies within a reasonable range. Since the bulk of the bundled merchandise goes to special cargo warehouses, shuttle traders and customs inspectors have a chance to reach a better "accommodation" in relative tranquillity, without a pushing crowd to witness money changing hands.

The lure of instant profits is so strong an incentive that Russians are willing to put up with flea-ridden hotels in foreign countries, dishonest wholesalers and corrupt customs officials. Once these barriers have been overcome, shuttle traders still have to find a way to unload their purchases. "It's good if you have a wholesale agent to take them to," says Volodya. "Otherwise, you have to peddle it all yourself. A lot depends on the weather. What will I do with cotton dresses if the present heat wave goes away?"

Still, he is hopeful that sooner or later, he will clear a profit-and go back to Istanbul again. Perhaps on his fifth trip, Volodya may even find time to visit the city's historic St. Sophia Cathedral, the Byzantine shrine from which Christian civilization shuttled to Russia a millennium ago.