Quo vadis, Russia? The question that remains open.

Russia belongs to the energy superpowers. It is a country rich on raw materials and selfsufficient state that possesses the largest gas reserves, second largest coal reserves and seventh largest oil reserves in the world. Raw materials and energy sources still form so-called backbone of the Russian economy because it contributes largely to the trade balance surplus, and represent the largest source of the federal budget revenues. On the other hand, they represent a major factor of Russia’s unconscious and therefore greater weakness. The world prices development of energy inputs has a strong vagueness and unpredictability, which strongly threatens the smooth flow of income of the federal budget of Russia. Massive fall in world prices of fossil fuels in the context of the global financial and economic crisis caused a massive drop of the Russian GDP. The Russian dependence on exports of fossil fuels has been discussed for a long time, nevertheless only in 2009 a study by Ponomarev et al. (2009) was published, entitled "Modernization of Russia as the Building of a New State”, which indicates that the potential direction of modernization of the Russian economy should be based on knowledge, innovation and investment. Based on this study an analysis of the Russian economy possibilities to rely on these three pillars was made. However, the end of the analysis clearly shows that the path that Russia still has to undergo will be more than difficult and painful.