This is Russia: the largest country on the planet by pure landmass. The country is the center of many controversies that have today made it a bit of a boogeyman in the international community.

It is enormous military power with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world even beating out the United States which comes as a hangover from when the nation was the centerpiece of the Soviet Union.

But we are not here to look at Russian military assets or speculate about the wild conspiracies that Vladimir Putin is inevitably plotting in the Kremlin as we speak. We are not even here to look at the Soviet Union that one deserves an episode all its own, no we are here to explore modern-day Russia, which is an economy that really is just not that impressive.

Russia is hugely powerful by virtue of its military and political influence but its economy is really nothing to be proud of. Its current GDP of around 1.7 trillion USD is certainly nothing to be ignored, it puts it in line with countries like Canada or Brazil but it does not put it in line with the world powers like China or the USA which is normally compared too.