Gold is good, say Russian makers of real metal credit cards

In what looks like an April Fool's article, a Russian English-language newspaper, Kommersant, says that in Russia, credit cards made of actual gold and platinum are about to hit the Visa and MasterCard marketplace.

Who thought this up, and why? Are they for the wagonloads of new noblemen sure to request them in neo-Czarist Russia?

Rozan, a plastic card maker in Russia, will make the "cards" out of "drug metals." (I have no idea what drug metals are.)

It's a "project" of some sort.

The gold or platinum cards weigh four or five times more than plastic ones, and will perhaps be worth more than the amount charged on them. They'll have jewels and nice wooden or pearl or enamel decorations on them, but somehow they'll look like regular plastic cards.

The report in Kommersant says it'll cost at least several thousand dollars each to produce them. 

If lost, it won't be a simple call to the 800 number for a replacement card. Losing a wedding ring down the garbage disposal might be less traumatic.

Two more drawbacks:
• The metal might short out some scanners.
• Shoulder dislocation from carrying multiple cards in your "man purse."

If you know any background for this stupendously practical idea, please fill me in.