I don’t know where are you getting it from. I’m particularly familiar with Middle Ural region of Russia (Yekaterinburg city and metro area). Like all the Urals it has little oil and gas if any. Despite that fact Middle Urals (or Sverdlovsk oblast) considered a Russia’s “donor” region. To make things clear I’ll tell that states in Russia divided in two groups of ‘donor’ and ‘recipient’ states. Donors are developed regions and they don’t get any finance from federal government (or supposed oil money you are talking about) and depressive recipient regions’ deficits are financed from their surplus budgets.
Despite getting zero federal (oil?) money, complete lack of oil&gas industry and also being a donor for less fortunate states like Chechnya or Dagestan, Yekaterinburg region is booming. They have numerous recently built 40 and 50+ story buildings in a downtown, the whole city is just like one construction site. There are numerous shopping malls, restaurants full of well dressed people driving around in new SUVs. I guess none of these people are in oil business, a really few of them are mobsters or government employees but they are still OK. What is wrong with this picture?
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=srR_F6vQYwo
Look at that city, I have just find a video of it on YouTube. A big industrial town on the very edge of Siberia, a town in a class of Detroit or Cleveland but look at how clean and peaceful it is. You can scroll bars in the middle of the night in inner city without risk of getting killed too. Does it looks like a third world hellhole you are talking about?
Remember that pig farm manager complaining how impossible it was for him to get any business done with the power structures the way they are? He was from Yekateringurg area.
And, if things are so great, where is foreign investment in Russia?