Russia

Economy:
GDP (purchasing power parity): $2.116 trillion (Source: The Word Factbook)
GDP – per capita (PPP): $15,100 (Source: The Word Factbook)
Population: 140,041,247 (Source: The Word Factbook)
Russia is the 8th largest economy in the world, but its GDP per capita income is only 75th best compared to the rest of the world.

Language: Russian
Russian is the only official language of the Russia. However, there are other minor languages within the country, including Abaza, Adyghe, Altay, Avar, Bashkir, Buryat, Chechen, Chukchi, Chuvash, Erzya, Ingush, Kabardian, Kalmyk, Karachay-Balkar, Khakas, Kanty, Kom-Zyrian, Mansi, Mari, Moksha, Nenets, Nogai, Ossetic, Tatar, Tuvan, Udmurt, and Yakut.

Internet Penetration
500,000 domain names registered (Source: Europe Registry)
45.25 million users online (Source: The Word Factbook)

Paid Search Engines in Russia:
Yandex
Rambler
Google
Aport
Mail

About Russia:
Russia is a country in Eastern Europe with a proud history of political power and strength. Its capital city of Moscow was the center of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), established as a federation of 22 states on December 30, 1922 under Communist leader Vladimir Lenin.

Lenin came to power by leading the Bolshevik Revolution against King Nicholas II, who was forced to abdicate his throne on March 15, 1917, and killed, along with his family, by revolutionaries the following year.
Lenin’s chilling authoritarian rule lasted for 25 years, or until he passed away in 1953. A new power bloc led by Nikita S. Khrushchev emerged from the shadows of Josef Stalin and formalized the Eastern European system into a Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). He likewise initiated the organization of the Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization to balance the growing influence of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the region.
Under Khrushchev’s watch, the Soviet Union introduced new milestones in its Cold War against the United States by exploding a hydrogen bomb in 1953, developing a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile in 1957, sending the first satellite into space (Sputnik I) in 1957, and outsmarting the United States by putting Yuri Gagarin in the first orbital flight around Earth in 1961.

Khrushchev’s decision to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and backing down after he was challenged by U.S. President John F. Kennedy put a crack on Khrushchev’s vaunted political will. He was likewise blamed for the ideological break with China after 1963 and was forced into retirement in1964.

After two decades of economic turmoil and stagnation, reformist president Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in a bid to transform Communism into a more sensitive and open system of governance.
However, these initiatives backfired when these new reforms were used by separatist leaders to foment unrest in their nationalist agenda. This was exacerbated by an unsuccessful military coup against Gorbachev, aimed at preserving the Soviet Union.

Shortly after the aborted coup, the USSR was officially dissolved and was broken up into Russia and 14 other independent states in December 1991.

In Russia’s first direct presidential election the following year, Boris Yeltsin was elected President. Under Yeltsin, Russia has moved from a globally-isolated and centralized economic model to a more market-oriented and globally-focused economy. Economic reforms included privatizing most industries, with notable exceptions of defense-related and energy sectors. Despite Yeltsin’s laudable motives to reinvigorate the economy, his initiatives were largely lost to politically connected “oligarchs” who won most of the equities of formerly state-owned companies.

Under Vladimir Putin, who won the presidency in 2000, Russia evolved into a major economic force. During his eight-year watch, Russia’s GDP grew by 72%, poverty was cut by more than half, and average monthly salaries increased from $80 to $640. Russia’s vast reservoir of raw energy from crude oil and natural gas helped the country to post an average growth of 6.85% from 1999 to 2008, considered by analysts as impressive by any measure.

The country’s sudden economic downturn, resulting from the global crisis, somewhat bottomed out in mid-2009 and by the third quarter of the year there were minute signs of economic life once again.

While Putin’s presidential term ended in 2008, Russia’s new president Dmitry Medvedev nominated the charismatic former president to be the new Prime Minister to sustain Russia’s economic momentum. The country still needs Putin to help realign Russia’s continued dependence on oil revenues despite its growth and to bridge the growing wedge between the rich and poor in Russia.