By all infrastructural standards, Moscow's Sheremetyevo II airport, which handles 90 percent of all international passenger traffic to and from Russia, is equipped to handle the load. One can understand authorities' plans to build a new billion-dollar terminal, which could create huge opportunities for swelling up certain individuals' Swiss bank accounts. However, just a few million rubles and some attention could change things for better with the terminals that already exist. This airport is a deliberate man made hell. Its glaring example of failed management of Aeroflot and Minister German Gref.

Thousands of Russian officials and businesspeople never bother to go through the procedures that millions of ordinary Russians and foreigners are subjected to. They can flash their cards or simply pay for faster clearance and jumping the queues. For all ordinary mortals, on the other hand, things are quite different.

Passengers arriving or departing from the airport are pushed into small, unlit, unventilated halls full of smoke and chaos – creating what many call the single-worst blot on Russia's image. Officers smoke right under no-smoking signs. Chaos reigns after each arrival.

Despite repeated requests from top investors and business leaders, no Russian minister or official has ever taken any interest in solving the problems – which, as one businessman wrote to The Russia Journal, could be "solved with $100." That leads one to suspect that this chaos is intentionally created so that corrupt airport and immigration officials can pocket, as some estimate, the up-to-a-million dollars that change hands each month for "VIP clearances" at the airport.

In its march toward prosperity, Russia is losing a great battle to its corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats. The image of the country is being tarnished by criminal negligence and the corruption of a very few.