Russia's size is one of its greatest assets and greatest hindrances. The country has a tremendous amount of natural resources, but everything is amazingly spread out, and low density is expensive. Russians always say their country suffers from a lack of modern infrastructure--roads, air transportation, supply networks--and infrastructure improvement is a constant topic in political discussions. Huge amounts of expensive infrastructure have to be built to serve small, isolated communities, particularly in Siberia.

Roads and especially bridges are Russia's most lacking infrastructure area. Ivanovo, Vladimir, and Murom--cities with a combined population of over 800,000--are connected by a single, bumpy, two-lane road. That road passes through the center of Vladimir and crosses the little river Klyama on a two-lane bridge, which is always packed with traffic. That's because it's the only river crossing in the city and one of the only for many miles. When I was in Siberia, I noticed that ferries, hovercrafts, or ice crossings are the preferred way to get across rivers--there simply aren't many bridges.

This led me to realize how amazingly rich America is with bridges. The idea of having to drive far out of your way to get to a river crossing is unheard of, at least in the parts of America I've visited. Bridges are plentiful and generally not plagued by capacity problems. In a way, America has a bit of the opposite problem--too many bridges. We face big bills to maintain the bridges we have, whereas Russia suffers from a shortage of bridges and the expense of building new ones in far-flung regions. And it's not just in Siberia: A few years ago, Medvedev came to Murom to cut the ribbon on a large new bridge that replaced a rickety floating bridge--the kind that the army uses for temporary crossings--that had been the only crossing for many years. And that's in a city of over 100,000 people. Here's the new bridge, which I visited this past spring: