Visitors flying into Moscow confront a sign whan they presenttheir passports for inspection; "It is forbidden to offer souvenir or money to officials."
Bribery at airports in just one sign of Russia's endemic corruption gnawing at the government, the law enforcement, the armed forces, the banking system, the state-owned media and business.
Russis has always been corrupt from early Tsarist times,when officials wages comprised nothing but bribes, to the Soviet era, when Communist party functionaries colluded with criminal gangs in a number of ways to exploit the state monopoly over the economy