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Encouraged by an economy growing at more than 6% every year, Russians no longer feel that their

ruble is a second-class currency.

Last month, President Putin made the rubel fully convertible, improving Russia's reputation on the financial markets after defaulting on 40 billion US dollars in debt eight years ago.

Has Russia arrived?

A telephone interview with senior fellow Steve Henke reveals that at least he seems to think so.

Why did Putin choose to remove currency controls on the ruble and make it fully convertible

after years of close management?

Well, Russia now has full convertibility for the first time since August 8th of 1914.

So in all those years years we've got almost a century you have had freedom restricted and

that's exactly what these capital controls do to someone owning a currency. They're restricted in their use.

Either you can't take the money out of the country without going through government regulations

or some pay off of somebody or you can't bring hard

money into the country and get it converted without doing the same thing, paying somebody

off or going through some kind of government regulations.

Now it's just like it is in the United States or Western Europe.

You've got full convertibility on the ruble.

It was a great day for freedom.

How has this impacted the Russian economy? Has the ruble strengthened or weakened against the

US dollar? It's strengthened a bit, but it's been on a strengthening trend for some time now and it's strengthened almost 7%

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