I suspect things may have improved in Russia since then, there is plenty of screwed up stuff but in my adult life I (and as far as I know my friends) had never been forced to bribe someone to accomplish something (passport, driving license, etc.), much less routinely do so. But then I was a small self-employed fish, and in fact due to my expectation of bribery I chose not to execute any business ideas in Russia. (Which so far seems not to have been a bad decision.)
It might also depend on where in Russia specifically. Moscow and Saint Petersburg are its own thing pretty much, so I can totally believe that things have improved there. But imo the further away you go from those two largest cities and the smaller the population is, the worse it would get.
I lived in a city of about half a million people about 800 miles east of Moscow (still in the European part of it though, not past-the-mountains regions), and it was definitely still the case there as of a few years ago (because my dad moved back there a while ago).
Not European part. I agree it matters where, but it does not seem to be so black and white that the country works on bribes anymore.
Perhaps that is why that foul regime enjoys popular support: people see is it not so awful anymore, but to consider it could have been even better is not acceptable.
