Despite the former Soviet Union's adoption of a policy of openess (glasnost), the reality of that policy hasn't taken nearly the form most people would expected, or hoped for. This is especially true on the Internet, which is supposed to have a democratizing effect in regards to freedom of information.

Estimates place Internet access in Russia at only about 5% (compared to 70% here in the States). Well, Russia has now moved to the second phase in their eGov strategy and one of their big initiatives is to provide increased access. Electronic government in Russia has a long way to go, but there is also a much greater potential. The state of technology in that country hit a peek in the early 60s, and never increased much beyond that. The promise of eGovernment will the ability to quickly jump from the low technology levels to something more equivalent with the rest of the west (or even the far east).

Here is an interesting quote from the article about the current state of technology usage by government agencies to prove my point: "The city of Moscow loses $25 million per year in pensions that are paid out to the deceased because it takes up to six months for death certificates to arrive at the necessary organizations." Cross-agency electronic access to these documents would be an enormous boon to the Russian government.