Devastating economic performance of the first years of Russia’s transition seemed to have reversed since the beginning of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. This work investigates whether the economic growth which occurred in Russia between 2000 and 2008 benefited all and the poor in particular. With the panel data from Rosstat we commence OLS, Fixed Effect and Random Effect regressions to find significant evidence that economic growth of the analysed period was pro-poor, however it was also associated with rising income inequality. Besides, we find that economic growth accounted for little variation in some other indicators of social welfare (education, housing, healthcare).