Permit Soviet Roulette a digression. What does the chief successor state of the USSR look like today? Here is what the Economist's 2010 Pocket World in Figures has to say about the world's largest country. Here is the story of Russia as told in randomly generated statistics....
Russia is the largest country in the world, by far, at 17,075,000 square kilometers.
It has the largest lake in the world, the Caspian Sea, as well as the seventh largest lake, Lake Baikal.
It has the eighth largest population in the world at 141 million. In 2025 it will drop to ninth place but will have dropped to 133 million. Not surprisingly, Russia also has the ninth slowest growing population in the world (surpassed, principally, by many former USSR republics.)
The average Russian woman has 1.46 children, the 20th lowest number in the world.
There are 86 men for every 100 women, the second lowest ratio of men to women in the world.
The average age of a Russian is 37.9.
Moscow, with 10.5 million people, is the 18th largest city in the world.
Russia also boasts the slowest growing city in the world, Ufa, which is shrinking at the rate of .7 percent each year.
Russia has the 20th largest refugee population, at 930,200, and Russians abroad account for the second highest number of asylum applications in other countries at 188,000.
Russia has the eleventh biggest economy in the world, at $1,290 billion (which is slightly smaller than the economy of Brazil.) It has the seventh largest economy by purchasing power.
Russia has grown by 7.4 percent, on average, in recent years. This is the 39th highest growth rate in the world.
Russia accounted for roughly 2 percent of global exports, and was the 14th largest exporter in the world.
Russia is the 12th largest trader of goods, at 2.65 percent of the global economy. It has the sixth largest surplus in balance of payments, at $76,241 billion.
Russia receives $4,100 million in workers' remittances.
It has fourth highest level of official reserves, at $476 billion, the most gold reserves in the world, at $12.1 billion, and the fourth most undervalued currency in the world.
Russia has the second highest foreign debt, at $370 billion, the eighth largest industrial output, at $426 billion, and the ninth highest growth in manufacturing output, $211 billion
Russia has the eleventh largest service output, $629 billion, and the seventh largest agricultural output, at $53 billion.
Russia is one of the leading global producers of copper, lead, nickel, aluminum, gold, platinum, palladium, rubber, raw wool, oil (second only to Saudi Arabia, and just barely, at 9,866,000 barrels per day), natural gas (leading the world), coal, and wheat.
Russia has 52.9 percent of its population in the labor force, which is the eighteenth highest in the world. It has the tenth highest percentage of women in the workforce.
Gazprom, worth $330 billion, is the fifth largest non-bank corporation in the world.
Sberbank is the sixteenth largest bank in the world, at $90 billion.
Russia has the seventh largest stock market, valued at $1,322 billion.
Russia has the eighteenth highest growth in listed companies.
Russia has the eighth longest road network, at 933,000 kilometers.
It has the third most rail traffic in the world, and the second longest railway.
Russia has the fifth largest merchant fleet.
Russia is the tenth biggest tourist spender.
75 percent of Russia's tertiary population is enrolled in college; and this makes it the twelfth highest in the world.
Russians have the fifth highest rate of cardiovascular disease in the world.
Russia has the seventh lowest ratio of citizens to doctors and the third highest rate of hospital beds to citizens.
Russia has the fifth highest divorce rate in the world.
It has 53 million households; 24 million of those households are single occupation households.
Russia has six million Internet hosts..
Each year Russians account for 98.5 million movie attendances.
The USSR received 440 gold medals; Russia, including the pre- as well as post-revolutionary state, received 109 gold medals.
Russia has received six Nobel prizes in physics.
Russia has the eighth highest per capita beer consumption in the world and the fifth highest alcoholic drink consumption.
Russia has the second highest cigarette consumption and on average the Russian smokes 7.2 cigarettes a day.
Russia has the third highest prisoner population 880,000, which is the third highest number as a percentage of the population.
Russia has the ninth biggest defense expenditure at $32 billion and the fourth largest regular army, at 1,027,000. Russia's reserves are 20,000,000.
Russia is the fourth worst water pollutant and the third worst emitter of carbon dioxide.
Russia has a population of 8.3 per square mile. Seven per cent of its land is arable.
Russia GNP is 9,000 per head.
6.1 of Russian workers are unemployed.
Russia's adult literacy rate is 98.5 percent.
73 percent of Russia is urban.
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