Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog has an interesting post about what’s happening with Russia’s movements toward a free market:

The money from oil, gas, and raw materials is flowing freely, driving this revolution. The biggest gainers, those at the top of the pyramid, are the officials, bureaucrats, and merchants who are part of the export network. Prosperity has trickled down, though, and many Russians have benefited. In 2006, median wages rose by more than 20 percent and the country posted 7 percent growth.

So, does Russia really have a free market economy?:

“We’re almost there,” says Arkady Dvorkovitch, President Vladimir Putin’s 35-year-old economic advisor. Trained in the United States, he has become the icon of the new generation in power. “We still do not have an independent judiciary,” he admits, “nor do we have genuine rule of law and officials who apply the rules rather than embezzle funds”, “almost there” suddenly seeming quite a ways off.

Well, there’s that, but there’s also the protection racket that ensnares nearly every businessman. But, with an economy built on oil, how long with the boom last, what with green becoming the world’s favorite color and global warming alarmism a misguided global movement? (emphasis added):

How long will the oil boom last? Forever—or that’s what the current Russian leadership seems to think. The growth potential of China and India has convinced them that oil prices can only rise further, to Russia’s great benefit. When I raise the specter of global warming and the policy response to it, which could result in lower oil and gas consumption, my Russian interlocutors laugh. This is a debate fabricated in the United States, they explain, and it doesn’t cut much ice with the Indians and Chinese—and, in any case, Russian climatologists don’t subscribe to the global warming theory. “Hasn’t Russia ratified the Kyoto Convention on the limiting of greenhouse gases?” I ask. Dvorkovitch is dismissive: it was merely a political gesture.