>a country occupying half the globe with 130m population can't even grow enough apples. They need to be imported from Poland. The same is true with everything else. Are you kidding me? And then Over 50% of the Russian budget comes from gas and oil exports.

Agriculture everywhere is a 1. low margin 2. labor intensive enterprise that requires 3. careful planning, 4. careful execution combined with 5. good stable investment climate and 6. property rights protection. In the relatively harsher climate of Russia the 3. and 4. becomes extremely important while Russians are among the worst people in the world when it comes to the 3. and 4. The 5. and 6. in Russia are among the worst due to its people's general contempt for entrepreneurship and due to dis-functionality and corruptedness of its government at all levels. While when it comes to oil/gas, piping it from the ground beats apple growing by the orders of magnitude wrt. the 1. and 2. :), and the 3. and 4. are partially solved by having foreign companies perform the complex drilling (and kicked out of the country after that :), and giving such high margins the 5. and 6. are solved in oil business by merging with the state which isn't an option for farmers. In short - having oil/gas is a big misfortune for Russia in the long run.