The article addresses factors that allowed large Russian companies to withstand the economic crisis, as well as prospects for their business expansion in the post-crisis setting. While anti-crisis policies adopted by Russian government supported big business substantially during the first months of the recession, they hardly played any pro-business role since mid-2009. The analysis of capitalization figures and sales volumes shows that leading positions of state-owned companies in oil, gas and financial sectors were in fact strengthened during the crisis. Excessive state control over corporate assets and decision-making works as a barrier to post-crisis recovery of large Russian companies and should be substituted for by policies supporting internationalization strategies and productivity improvements.