The business daily Kommersant breaks down the top 10 online display advertisers in Russia, including:

- Ford Motor Co. ($4.6m),
- MTS ($2.5m),
- Megafon ($2.3m),
- General Motors ($2m),
- VimpelCom ($1.9m),
- Peugeout Citroen ($1.6m),
- Nissan ($1.5m),
- Samsung ($1.3m),
- Honda ($1.2m), and
- Procter & Gamble ($1.1m).

Partially because I was born in a Russian-built hospital in Tehran, I’ve always been somewhat interested in Russia, its history, and its recent resurgence.  The country is a fascinating story in the re-making, what with the rumors surrounding outgoing President Vladimir Putin’s massive fortunes, and the stratospheric rise the country’s fortunes have experienced of late.  Consider some stats I came across:

The average monthly Russian salary was:

- $200 in 2003,
- $303 in 2005,
- $545 in 2007.

according to Kommersant and Pravda.   Obviously, there’s plenty of upside.

And that’s for the average employee, as in all countries, the highest earners earn far, far more.  A CEO earns $150,000 per annum, or just over $10,000 per month, according to this report, and that was 2007, I suspect it’s gone even higher.

In fact, the top CEOs get up to $24,000 per month, according to this.

Connecting the dots: as Russia’s massive population - which a few short years ago was showing troubling demographic signs - increases its purchasing power, expect online advertising rates to follow suit.  Here’s comScore’s Top 10 Russian sites: