I have another comment on quality of life in Russia:

Ok, as I've said -- I've never been in Moscow, and last time I was Russia, it was a different country - not comparable with now.
So all I have to judge on is TV, media and what people are saying here - so there is a possibility that I got the wrong end of the stick:

However -- Looking at TV from Moscow, it certainly doesn't seem like most people are poor.
On the street scenes from Moscow that I am seeing on TV, people are wearing nice clothes: There are cafés, shops, department stores etc. It doesn't seem different from the rest of Europe - in fact a lot of people are better dressed. I've seen interviews from regular people's homes and they have nice kitchens, modern furniture, living rooms filled with tech stuff, including large TVs - kids with computers in their rooms, people have specialist sports equipment and sometimes even a dacha. Same living standards as Western Europe, but minus the consumer debt that a lot of people have.

People here are talking about holidays abroad and technical gadgets they are buying.
All this seems to suggest that middle class and upper class people now have a perfectly acceptable lifestyle and that this came about very fast (comparing with the miserable scenes from the 1990s).

I realise that Moscow is quite different from smaller cities, and that people have higher incomes.

It definitely seems like the majority of people are reasonably off. Also, I think Russian households have less consumer debt, and Russia as a country has almost no foreign debt at all. Also my impression is that there is an underclass in Russia - immigrants, retired people and low skilled workers who are quite poor and struggle from paycheck to paycheck. Also - my impression is that outside of the biggest cities, incomes are lower and people don't necessarily have the lifestyle I described above - but still eating, heating their houses and paying rent comfortably.