NEWSLINK Forbes: 10 Charts That Explain Russia

For reasons that are far beyond my ability to explain, Russia is a place that attracts clichés in much the same way that a bright flame attracts moths. Having always found the place confusing, contradictory, and vaguely mysterious, Westerners have settled upon a few choice quotes that supposedly summarize Russia in its entirety.

Even today, with the welcome rise of “data journalism” and the proliferation of graphs and fancy-looking charts, you come across these clichés with surprising frequency. Russia is “a mystery inside a riddle.” It is a place that “cannot be understood with the mind alone.” Or, perhaps, it is “Upper Volta with rockets.” Other tropes about Russia and Russians that are used with depressing frequency include uncontrolled alcoholism, limitless stoicism, and anything even tangentially related to bears. …

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/03/30/10-charts-that-explain-russia/2/