From: "Slav Pidgorny (GEUS)" <slav.pidgorny@anz.com>

It's a bit too simplistic to equate Soviet Union to Russia. Georgia was also a part of USSR and now is #65 in the world. And they have been through wars and occupation.

Yep, that's true. It is also fair to say that there is a gap between the Russian empire and Germany even before communism came (you shared your experience in the Soviet Union after I mentioned mine in East Germany). Russia had an urbanisation of 14.8% in 1915 http://www.iisg.nl/publications/respap44.pdf in Germany it was more than 60% in 1910. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochindustrialisierung_in_Deutschland (sorry, it is German but believe my translation of "Im Jahr 1910 lebten nur noch 40% in Gemeinden mit weniger als 2000 Einwohnern" - in 1910 less than 40% lived outside towns with 2000 people or more) 1998, last time when I travelled through the former Soviet Union, mostly by train (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan), I saw countries very poor compared to East Germany before 1989. Your sad experience do not surprise me but I am not sure how much they have to do with communism. What I noticed was a difference in attitude in the former Soviet Union. Russia and Ukraine was very sad to see, with people drunk already in the morning (even hotel porters in "good" hotels) and a lot of "there is no hope" ("Why are you here? I leave as quickly as I can", I heard many times) while in Central Asia people seemed to be more upbeat (even if not really better off in materialistic values - and Uzbek democracy isn't invented yet..) I wouldn't be surprised if Alcoholism plays a major part in bringing down Russian life expectancy. Regards Peter