Using acronyms to describe different groups of countries is popular in the financial industry.  You have the acronym PIIGS to represent Portugal, Italy,Ireland, Greece, and Spain.   Unfortunately these countries got pigeon toed into an acronym for having concerns of their sovereign debt.

The more common acronym over the past couple of years has been BRIC, representing Brazil, Russia, India, and China.  These are four emerging market countries who have experienced rapid economic growth over the past couple of years.  The question is whether Russia still belongs in the same group with the other three.

China is expecting to keep up their double digit growth for the foreseeable future (The US is expected to grow at 2-3%).  Brazil has gotten their currency and inflation issues under control and has a enormous amount of natural resources that they are sitting on. 

Russia, on the other hand is the only one of the four who has seen their GDP drop (7.9%) in 2009.  Russia's economy has a high dependence on commodities (specifically oil) and the recession over the past two years really hit the economy hard.  You can find corruption anywhere, but the rampant corruption in Russia can be one of the reasons that Russia attracts one-fifth the foreign investment that Brazil and China does and half of what India receives.

There are some signs of optimism for Russia.  If the prices of oil and natural gas continue to rise, the country could be poised for a steady recovery over the next couple of years. 

Other emerging market countries that are getting a lot of publicity now are Turkey, Indonesia, and even Israel.  One cause of caution with emerging markets is that if their economies and the global economies are doing well their stocks soar, but once things go sour, they are often the fastest equity investments to fall.