Russia - General Discussion.

[swerve]

Looking more into it, with real GDP/capita in Russia being 5 times less than that in the US, Russia has about quarter of the roads that the Americans have (and about 1.5 times more kilometres than we do in Canada). The United States has more than 10 times the population density of Russia though (and ~2.5? times population of Russia) and much more favourable average climate conditions.

USA - 37 per km2
Russia - 8.6 per km2

4.3 times, not more than 10 times.

Here is something many would not likely expect though: 71% of Russian roads are paved. No country with even remotely similar climate is ahead or close. Canada sits at 40% and the United States at 65%. Finland? Well, Finland paved 20% of their road network.

You ignore an important factor: roads in proportion to population.

People per km of paved road/total roads (the fewer the better)
Russia: 130/92
USA: 79/52
Canada: 100/40
Finland: 72/12

So, in proportion to population, all these countries have more paved roads. Russia has a higher proportion of paved roads (& to what standard?) merely because it has less road per person. It has more people per km of roads in total than Finland or the USA have for paved roads, let alone all roads, & I suspect the average quality of paved roads is higher in Finland, though my personal comparison (far better in Finland, including rural areas) was in the days of the USSR, so I can't say for sure. Google street map suggests my comparison could still be valid, though.

Canada has roughly half the population density of Russia, BTW.