Not sure what they are planning about direct redeemability, but Russian banks sell gold at the window. You used to have to pay a 20% VAT if you took physical possession (but could keep it in a gold-gram-denominated account without the tax), but the tax was dropped a week or two ago. I just checked Sberbank, and they currently quote a 5572/4872 (buy/sell) spread for gold.
Interesting and worth keeping an eye on. Thanjs!