Lena Vodopyanova, 14, has found a niche in Russia's new market economy, earning more in four days than her engineer mother earns in a month.
She buys blue-and-black nylon baseball caps with the words "California, U.S.A." and a stitched golden bald eagle on them, and then resells them on the street for a profit.Her initial investment was 140 rubles (about $1.15 at the most realistic official exchange rate) to buy one cap, which she sold almost immediately for 170 rubles ($1.40). The young entrepreneur says she now earns up to 500 rubles (about $4) a day.
"I don't know what I'll do with the money. I'll probably buy something with it," she said while standing on a busy downtown sidewalk next to a 13-year-old competitor hawking his own caps. "If they ask for it, I'll give it to my parents."
Children as well as adults are cashing in as Moscow throws off decades of centralized economic control.
Although there are runaway and homeless children who are forced to work to make ends meet, most of Russia's youngest entrepreneurs are simply taking advantage of relaxed laws on commercial activities to make money.
Under communism, children were perceived as the precious hope of the future, coddled and spoiled to the point that they were not allowed to do anything for themselves.
They almost never were allowed to work until they graduated from school. Even activities such as baby-sitting and washing cars were frowned on.
Most kids spent the summers at home participating in government-sponsored recreational activities or at Pioneer Camps, which lost Communist Party funding following the collapse of the Soviet Union last year.
"There were never as many children in Moscow in the summer as there are now," said Moscow Children's Fund deputy chairman, Yelena Phonareva. There are no laws expressly allowing or forbidding children to work, because in the past it was "taken for granted that they wouldn't," she said.
But children as young as 7 are now found regularly in the subway, selling address books, notepads, pens and newspapers to commuters.
Others don't sell goods, but convenience - a service that has been in very short supply in Moscow.
At foreign-currency grocery stores, children offer to carry groceries to parked cars for a tip. Outside McDonald's, kids deliver hamburgers and drinks to patrons who don't have time to go inside themselves. Busy Moscow intersections are often crowded with tough-looking pre-teens selling bottles of Pepsi or orange soda, or offering to wash car windows.
"The thing that is good about this is that, sure, I like the Pepsi (aspect), but the thing is that people are starting to take their own initiative and do things," said Donald Kendall, co-founder of Pepsi-Cola, who was in Moscow last month.
"All of a sudden you see people out shining shoes. You know, in the United States, people have known that for a long time, that's a way of making money and you're seeing it here," he told The Associated Press.
Cap-seller Lena Vodopyanova said she buys the hats from a group of Vietnamese students who import small items from home to help finance their studies in Moscow.
Her mother earns less than 2,000 rubles ($17) monthly as a state-employed engineer. Her father, who works for a private firm, makes about 5,000 rubles ($42) monthly. The average Russian monthly salary is 1,960 rubles ($16), according to the State Committee on Statistics.
"Mama is worried that something will happen to me because I live about an hour from here and have to rely on public transportation. But my father thinks my job's OK," she said.