It can take Moscow residents two hours in dense traffic to drive the first 10 miles on the highway to St. Petersburg, in the direction of their country cottages surrounded by lakes and birch groves. Then the road’s real limitations become apparent. The potholed two-lane route connecting Russia’s two largest cities has never been upgraded into a proper highway. Anyone who cares to drive its entire 440-mile length — mostly truckers — will need at least 12 hours. But 5,600 miles away, the government spent more than $1 billion on less than a mile of bridge connecting Vladivostok with Russky Island, previously inhabited only by a military garrison so isolated that four soldiers starved to death in 1992. An additional $5 billion was lavished on the speck of land to host the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, including a new university campus and an as-yet-unfinished presidential residence. Visions of a North Pacific tourist destination have proved illusory, however. Few people care to vacation in a place where the temperature is below freezing half the year. Such spending priorities reflect President Vladimir Putin’s effort to project power and engineering prowess through the showy style of today’s Kremlin. Massive oil and gas profits allow the leadership to finance pet projects, many of which benefit those in Putin’s inner circle but contribute little to the general welfare. They suck up money needed for modern highways, regional airports, hospitals, courthouses and other infrastructure, analysts say. State-owned factories still dominate production. Bureaucracy stunts the small businesses that are the engine of growth elsewhere. Private wealth generated in Russia is often spirited abroad, to countries where banking and investment are more trustworthy. Efforts initiated by former President Dmitry Medvedev to streamline the economy have sputtered since Putin engineered his return to the top job two years ago and shifted the focus to enhancing state control and ensuring public order. As economic growth has flat-lined over the last six months, a sense of unease has emerged, even among state economic advisors who see more risk to stability from an economic crisis than a political one. Putin’s seizure of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, causing a sharp deterioration in relations with the West, is likely to make matters worse.