169 companies offer custom-written doctoral dissertations for sale in Russia at prices ranging from the equivalent of $900 to $25,000, according to research by Ararat L. Osipian of Vanderbilt University. By one estimate, some 10,000 dissertations are written for pay each year in Russia, nearly one-third of the disssertations defended there.
[1]Advanced degrees are popular among Russian politicians. More than half of the members of the State Duma, Russia´s main legislative body, hold doctoral degrees, Osipian reports.
Source: Economics of corruption in doctoral education: The dissertations market