How bad is corruption in present-day Russia?
Very bad. Russia scores 154th out of 178 countries on the 2010 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index [1]. The countries far down on the list, with high numbers, are the least clean and most corrupt, according to the perceptions of citizens. So, according to this widely used index, Russia is more corrupt than 86% of countries in the world — more corrupt by a large margin than each of Swaziland, Serbia, Mexico, and Italy [2]. Bribery is a normal part of everyday life in Russia. The mean per capita payment of bribes by Russian citizens is over $2000 per year. (Of course, much of this money is paid by businesses, not private citizens, but the corruption costs of doing business are reflected in prices.) From drivers forced to pay routine bribes to traffic police, to business owners paying to keep government inspectors from arbitrarily shutting them down, the government itself estimates people in Russia shell out $300 billion in bribes each year. [3] The government, at al
