Bizarre facts about Russia

1. Life expectancy among Russian men has declined dramatically since the fall of communism, plummeting from over 65 years to around 58 by 2000. Alcohol poisoning is one of the leading causes of death.
2. 40% of all European Union beef is exported to the former Russia. Beset with very basic infrastructure problems, Russia has been unable to develop any amount of industrial production to satisfy its domestic needs and has become subject to a mountain of imports for much of its most basic needs. This in a country blessed with the most national resources of any on the planet!
3. Russia has experienced a titanic like erosion in its economy in the 1990s similar to the American depression of the 1930s. Since 1990 industrial production has fallen by almost 50%, teachers, minors and soldiers go unpaid for months because the government has no money to pay them, and Russia, which once aimed to overtake the US, now boasts a GDP of only 2% of that of the American economy.