Russia Under the Impact of the Global Economic Crisis

The global financial crisis, brewing for a while, really started to show its effects in the middle of 2007 and in 2008. Around the world stock markets have fallen, large financial institutions have collapsed or been bought out, and governments in even the wealthiest nations have had to come up with rescue packages to bail out their financial systems. Despite official attempts to designate Russia as a safe-haven in the stormy sea of the global financial crisis, the crisis has deeply affected the Russian economy. Russia’s fiscal decline –from an average of 7 percent annual growth before the crisis to a loss of 7.9 percent GDP in 2009 – is the highest figure among G20 countries.