It is in a state of becoming, but what is unclear. There is an underlying sense of marking time until the State Duma elections in December and the presidential election next summer and dark conspiracy theories about what might happen between now and then. Problems immense Russia's problems are immense. Much of the economy remains in a gray twilight of barter outside the reach of laws and the tax collector. The entire tax system is punitive and incoherent, the judicial system weak and not yet committed to the sanctity of contracts.
Bureaucracies are casually corrupt.
Crime is skyrocketing and public health declining. Oligarchs have looted the country of hundreds of billions. Chechnya is heating up again. The infrastructure is crumbling, a relic of the shoddy, haphazard and careless construction of the Soviet years. In building after building, stair steps are uneven.