I think they're referring to the fact that the Russian stock market collapsed completely (i.e. total loss) in the beginning of the 20th century.
Clearly. But they were considering investment strategies (buy&hold vs alternatives). My point was that few if any investment policies would hedge you against market extinction events.
I would probably have preferred to own real-estate in Russia... Although If we look back to before ww2, probably not...
If a fund manager is relatively close to Kremlin, than yes.