It’s insanely expensive to bribe Russian officials these days

KYIV, Ukraine — It’s bad enough that just getting things done in Russia, from beating a speeding ticket to running a business, often means paying a kickback.

But now it's worse: You've got to pay twice as much.

Russia’s Interior Ministry told reporters in late July that the average bribe may have doubled from around 109,000 rubles last year to 208,000 today. In dollars, that increase is nowhere nearly as high: a little over $3,050 in 2014 versus $3,400 now. But in rubles, it isn't pretty.

Excessive greed is always a key factor in corruption, but experts are suggesting another explanation in this case. It’s the economy.

Hammered by low oil prices and Western economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, Russia's economy is in tatters and its currency has lost almost half its value over the past year. (For reference, here’s a graph that tracks the ruble’s decline.)

The plunging ruble affects ordinary Russians in a variety of ways as it’s sent inflation soaring — and the cost of bribes has been no exception.

“This is due to the fact that bureaucrats have gotten used to taking bribes in dollars or tying their ruble equivalent to the Central Bank rate,” Dmitry Chugunov, a member of a pro-government advisory body, told a leading Russian newspaper.

The reported bribe average has risen even faster than ordinary inflation. The price of food, for example, is up 20 percent in the past year. 

Given the shady nature of the practice, not all experts agree it’s possible to accurately measure just how much Russians pay on average, or how often.

But there’s one thing most observers can agree on: corruption is a major problem in Russia, and it’s not getting any better.

The country scored an unenviable 136th place — out of 175 — on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception index last year. That’s better than Uganda, the African island nation of Comoros and Ukraine, but tied with Nigeria, Lebanon and a few others.