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The August 1998 financial crisis seems to be already almost forgotten historical episode. Russian economy continues to grow at rapid pace and some of economic reforms (particularly simplification of the tax system) undertaken since 2000 have been followed as positive experience by other transition countries. In spite of these positive developments a key concern relates to long-term sustainability of economic growth. One may ask to what extent some fundamental distortions and problems (e.g. weak financial discipline on enterprise level, fragile banking sector, flaws in fiscal federalism, inefficient social programs), which led to August 1998 crisis, have been really cured? Is the Russian economy prone to another crisis? What kind of post-crisis lessons have been drawn both in Russia and by international financial markets and international financial organizations? This paper tries to analyze both macro- and microeconomic consequences of August 1998 crisis, the sources of rapid growth of Russia's economy and key potential obstacles to future economic developments. Among the latter the most important are: a poor business climate caused by remaining pathologies of post-Soviet state and deficit of democracy, and chronic moderate inflation determined by the conflicting goals of monetary policy.