Russians Still Buying Gold
The race among world governments to accumulate as much gold as possible is now officially "on."  This from Casey Research concerning Russia.

Russia's Central Bank purchased 500,000 ounces of gold in March... bringing their total gold stash to 21.3 million ounces. Without doubt, all this gold would have been purchased from Russia's own mine production.

The really interesting part about their central bank's purchases in the first quarter of 2010 is that they are off to their biggest [reported] first quarter gold purchases in history. In Q1/07, their net purchases were zero. In Q1/08 they purchased 200,000 ounces... and in Q1/09 Russia's central bank purchased 360,000 ounces. But in Q1/10 they bought a monstrous 800,000 ounces. March 2010 purchase of 500,000 ounces is tied for the third-highest gold purchase for any one month...ever! If they keep this up, heaven only knows how many ounces they'll have in their vaults by the end of this year.