An average bribe in Russia today, according to the law enforcement agencies, is $10,000. It grew 500% since a year ago. However, the investigators say that it's not the bribe that grew, but the efficiency of their work. Over the past year, Russian police and FSB caught several multi-million-dollar bribes, and landed some of high-profile officials in jails. The statistics involve everything, from several-dollar drivers bribes to traffic police all the way to 50-60-million-ruble bribes (approx. $2 million) to high-ranking officials.

According to Ernst&Young, Russia is Europe's leader in business corruption. The average amount of a bribe has been consistently at least doubling each year since 2005. Once again, the anti-corruption officials are stressing that the doubling of the bribe's price tag is correlated with the efficiency of their work. We at Russia Blog are wondering though, why is it doubling consistently since 2005, instead of dissappearing? Curbing the corruption has been Medvedev's top priority since day one of his presidency. Instead, his employees are patting each other on the backs for just uncovering the bribes, and in no way reversing the trend. China has a corruption problem as well. The way they deal with corrupt officials is medieval, but it works: they literally shoot them. In Russia, as my friend said the other day, officials -- on par with Putin -- funnel billions to Swiss and Cyprus accounts, go under investigation, share some of the stolen money with the court, get conditional penalties, and wave goodbye before boarding jets to take off for far-away lands.

Of course, undisputed rumors of Putin's $1 billion cottage/castle don't help to set the trend or serve a good example. Russia must harshly prosecute rather than just uncover the corruption. However, the officials are not too inspired to work hard fighting the corruption, when their salaries aren't big enough to go out for 10 dinners with a family. That's where the evil circle comes around. A role-modeling from the top (Putin and Medvedev) would be a good place to start. However, for now, the two enjoy fishing, diving, and driving Mercedeses and Porsches. No wonder, every Russian kid would rather be a Putin than Steve Jobs...