Russia is an attractive place to many Western European countries as it represents a large potential market and as it owns a lot of natural resources. The Russian population is spread over 11 time zones. It is important not to underestimate the size of Russia when planning to business in the country.

The fact that almost two third of the Russian population lives in big cities that are far away from each other and surrounded by vast and little populated areas, often with poor transportation connections between the cities, makes an extensive distribution in Russia challenging. For an entry into the Russian market, it is preferable to focus on the bigger cities because an extensive distribution all over the country would be expensive and not profitable The rural areas are very low populated. The biggest markets are constituted by the biggest cities. In Moscow for example, there is three times more home computers than the national average. The wages are higher, but there are also more competitors and the costs of running a business are higher.