Re: depopulation: I remember in college a Russian classmate telling me she predicted the end of Russia in the next hundred years because of extreme depopulation. I asked how that could be possible, with more than 140 million citizens. She said I had to think about relative population increase, and how many Russians there would be if Stalin and Hitler hadn't eliminated the portions of the population they had (say, vis a vis, the increase of the American population over the same time period; they should be direct correlations). Line that up against the vast geography and the impossible fiscal burden of stretching state resources to remote areas, and it all adds up to a dying country.

I don't know if she's right (obviously; I know very little about these things) but I did read a novel a couple years ago called PETROPOLIS, about the realities of a modern Russian mail-order bride (although it's not at all what you're thinking right now), and it made me remember this. The author's depiction of modern Russia rather fit into that above-mentioned college girl's prediction.