A bank run does mean people hysterically fighting to enter into banks to gain physical access to cash or to their accounts. On a national scale. I saw that happen in Moscow (in that case they changed banknotes over night and people were only allowed to change a small number of the larger banknotes - those that everybody used for non-dollar savings - per person, it's not pretty. That where you see exchange rates move on an hourly basis or more frequently, and people get desperate and do desperate things.

That happened at least twice in 92-93. Then in 98 you had another kind of run - the internal kind, with banks closing overnight and savers losing it all (but well-informed insiders allowed to withdraw money before doors closed. Several of my Russian friends who were supposed to come to my wedding in September 1998 did not make it because they were ruined or too busy trying to salvage some of their assets.

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