The biggest problem of the Russian economy today is not its excessive dependence on oil and natural gas exports or the Western sanctions imposed against it in response to Crimea. It consists in the domination of the public sector, which suppresses private entrepreneurial initiative and leads to final inefficiency.

On Thursday, November 19, the Russian edition Forbes published its annual ranking of the highest paid Russian top managers, compiled on the basis of data on their income for 2014. The first three places in this ranking were occupied by the heads of state companies.