The purpose of this research is to examine the economic conditions of present-day Russia. The plan of the research will be to set forth a brief geographic and demographic current history of the country, and then to discuss issues relating to the current and future conduct of and prospects for business development there.
The contemporary business environment of Russia cannot be understood or appreciated without a concomitant appreciation of the physical characteristics of the country, which are quite complex and diverse. Extending from the Arctic coast to the north, to a series of mountain ranges that form a natural frontier at its southern boundary, the Russian Plain also extends eastward from the eastern boundaries of Scandinavia, the countries of Central Europe, and the Baltic Sea, all the way to the Pacific coast. Because the boundaries of Russia, now commonly referred to as the Russian Federation, appear to be an issue that is not entirely settled in the wake of the fall of the Soviet system, it may be useful to look first at how the U.S.S.R., which for most of the twentieth century included some 89 political administrative divisions, some of which since 1991 have achieved or are in process of achieving political independence, has historically been configured. The western topography of the Russian Plain, which is traditionally considered to contain Russia proper as well as the fifteen constituent republics, "is a continuation of the West European Plain and is divided by the Ural Mts. into two parts, one European, called the East European Plain and the other Asiatic, named the West Siberian Lowland or Siberian Plain" (U.S.S.R. 8749). At the southern end of the Urals is the northern shore of the Caspian Sea, which extends southward to the border of Iran. As a practical matter, throughout the political transformation of the administrative regions of the Russian Plain in recent years, some autonomous and national regions have been c...