Russians Love Free Money

Russians. Did you know they also have crazy rich people? Even millionaires, though most are members of the Russian mob. Anyway, Russian millionaire Pavel Durov has made headlines this week for his paper airplanes. He has a secret technique that involves some truly advance folding. He starts with a 5,000 ruble note, folds it into a little plane, and then throws it out the window.
Yes, Pavel, bored of hiding his money in nesting dolls, decided to literally throw his money away. Instead of investing it in GM stock like most people, he wasted it by throwing it out the window. Of course this caused people down below to pile on top of each other grabbing for free money. After a few minutes of this, he had to stop because "people turned into animals", as Pavel himself described.

Shouting free money from a window is a great way to get yourself noticed

So who the hell is this Pavel Durov? He is called the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, which I assume means that he wears Russian hoodies and makes poor stock offerings. After a bit of research, it turns out he's called that because he is the CEO of Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook. The big difference between Facebook and Vkontakte is that on Facebook you can tag photos of your friends where as with Vkontakte photos of your friends tag you! Thank you Yakov Smirnoff.
For those who are wondering, 5,000 rubles is roughly 160 of real American dollars. All told, he tossed about $2,000 out the window. No word on how far the planes flew, but I'm hoping it was far enough to justify the expense.
Seriously though, is it Russians or rich people who are the crazy ones? Or is it both? Does being both super-rich and Russian doom you to a lifetime of insanity and eccentric origami? How come when I make an airplane out of a fiver my wife yells at me to stop playing around and pay the rent? How bad is the Russian economy that they need bills worth 5,000 rubles?