A janitor cleaning the street next to an exotic race car in Moscow, Russia

With average salaries of the working class virtually unchanged over the past year, and still no paved road between the west side and the east coast of the country, Russian citizens are not sure if they should be proud by the fact that their nation's capital is home to 79 billionaires, most in the world. On the other hand, Russia's vast spaces and extreme temperatures would make the maintenance of a continental highway nearly impossible, and an average Russian has seen his income surge over the past decade. So, after all, countless Bentleys, Mercedes's, and Rolls Royce's in the streets of Moscow are nowhere near to cause a Soviet-October-style or Egypt-type revolution. People, on average, are happy.

With unrest in Africa and the Middle East, The New York Times (usually unfriendly to Moscow) calls Russia "the most stable energy exporter in the world." European and American investors lined up to strengthen Russia's financial well-being and billionaires' pockets: "BP cited Russia's relative stability compared with OPEC regions, when announced in January a $7.8 billion deal to invest in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft and jointly search for oil in the Arctic. Later that month, Exxon Mobil, the biggest American oil company, signed a deal with Rosneft to explore offshore in the Black Sea," reported the NYT. French energy giant Total cited Russia's stability two weeks ago when agreeing to buy $4 billion worth (about 12 percent) of a Russian independent natural gas producer Novatek, and join a liquefied natural gas project in the Russian Arctic.

Combined with Russia's status as a number-one world's energy exporter, facts are facts: Russia is home to a stable economy, balanced budget, satisfied population, fastest strengthening currency, and 101 billionaires. After all, Russia's snow and ice are friendlier than Arab sand and sunshine (and safer than the Wall Street's gambling).