Something is going-on in Russia

[karynnj]

5. Gold is a commodity - thus its value is set worldwide, not per country

What you are seeing in that chart is that the price of gold in dollars is pretty constant while the price in rubles is going way up.

All this means is that value of the ruble vs either gold or US dollars is drastically falling. If the euro or another stable currency were plotted against the ruble - you would likely see the same thing - the ruble declining relative to it.

THE RUBLE IS WHAT IS CHANGING VALUE.

(Here is a chart of US dollar vs Ruble today - http://www.x-rates.com/graph/?from=RUB

Something is going on and no matter what it is, it is not good for Russia. It could be that the rest of the world may increase sanctions if Russia does not get out of Ukraine. Alternatively, there is a probe of the three oil companies in Russia and the BBC points out that the ruble is impacted by energy sector health - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29932399