(FORTUNE Magazine) – About the last things in the world that the manly lumberjacks of Russia's Yarensky logging company need as they clear the dense forest near the Arctic Circle are feminine hygiene products. But the loggers will be receiving boxes of tampons in place of their paychecks for the rest of the year because the firm has no money to pay its workers. Unable to sell its lumber for rubles, Yarensky traded its timber to a tampon manufacturer that found no market for its product. Yarensky employees hope for better luck selling to the female population of the far northern city of Arkhangelsk. The tampon incident is the latest in a burgeoning inter-enterprise payments crisis strangling newly privatized ventures in the former Soviet Union. Companies making products they can't sell owe at least $20 billion to other firms for raw materials. The vicious circle of nonpayment is a residue of the Soviet system, in which goods were manufactured according to a central plan, regardless of demand. Streets and markets from Moscow to Crimea are filled with workers selling the linens, pots and pans, chocolate bars, and sewing machines they have been given in lieu of cash (see photo). Worse yet, 33,000 firms have neither funds nor products to pay employees, many of whom are threatening to strike. The Russian government wants to stem the crisis by converting companies' debt into bonds. Of course, they'll have to find investors to buy the bonds, which is more easily said than done. /