Russia - History, Politics, Administrative divisions, Geography and climate, Economy, Demographics, Culture, Etymology

Official name Russian Federation, formerly (1917–91) the Russian SFSR (Soviet Federal Socialist Republic), Russ Rossiyskaya

Local name Rossiyskaya (Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) Timezone GMT ranges from +2 to +12 Area 17 075 400 km²/6 591 100 sq mi population total (2002e) 143 673 000 Status Republic Date of independence 1991 Capital Moscow Languages Russian (official), and c.100 different languages Ethnic groups Russian (82%), Tatar (3%), Ukrainian (3%) Religions Christian (Russian Orthodox 25%), non-religious (60%), Muslim Physical features Occupying much of E Europe and N Asia; consists of c.75% of the area of the former USSR and over 50% of its population; vast plains dominate the W half; Ural Mts separate the E European Plain (W) from the W Siberian Lowlands (E); E of the R Yenisey lies the C Siberian Plateau; N Siberian Plain further E; Caucasus on S frontier; Lena, Ob, Severnaya Dvina, Pechora, Yenisey, Indigirka, and Kolyma rivers flow to the Arctic Ocean; Amur, Argun, and rivers of the Kamchatka Peninsula flow to the Pacific Ocean; Caspian Sea basin includes the Volga and Ural rivers; over 20 000 lakes, the largest being the Caspian Sea, L Taymyr, L Baikal. Climate Half of country covered by snow for 6 months of year; coldest region, NE Siberia, average annual temperature -46°C (Jan), 16°C (Jul); summers in rest of country generally short and hot; average annual temperature -18–9°C (Jan), 16–24°C (Jul) in Moscow; average annual rainfall 500–750 mm/20–30 in. Currency 1 Rouble (RUR) = 100 kopeks Economy Oil fields in W Siberia (provide 50% of country's petroleum); series of 5-year plans since 1928 promoted industry; heavy-industry products include chemicals, construction materials, machine tools, and steel-making; mining, major producer of iron ore, manganese, natural gas, nickel, and platinum, also coal, copper, gold, zinc, tin, lead; agriculture, primarily wheat, fruit, vegetables, tobacco, cotton, sugar beet; textiles; timber. GDP (2002e) $1·409 tn, per capita $9700 Human Development Index (2002) 0·781 History Conquered by Mongols in 13th-c; Ivan IV (the Terrible) became first ruler to be crowned Tsar, 1547; Time of Trouble, 1604–13; under Peter the Great, territory expanded to the Baltic Sea and St Petersburg founded as capital, 1703; Napoleon invasion failed, 1812; Crimean War, 1853–6; emancipation of the serfs, 1861; assassination of Alexander II, 1881; Balkan War with Turkey, 1877–8; Russo-Japanese War, 1904–5; establishment of a parliament (Duma) with limited powers, 1906; Russia allied with Britain and France, World War I; revolution overthrew Nicholas II, Bolsheviks (Communists) seized power under the dictatorship of Lenin, 1917; Russia forced to withdraw from War; renamed the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, 1918, and Moscow reinstated as capital; Russia became part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 1922; death of Lenin, 1924; Trotsky deported in 1928, by which time Stalin acquiring dictatorial power; USSR fought with the Allies against Germany in World War II; from 1946 development of the Cold War between East and West; troops intervened in Afghanistan, 1979; radical reform of the system under the leadership of Gorbachev, 1985–91; first contested elections in Soviet history held, and the end of the Cold War announced, 1989; troops withdrawn from Afghanistan, 1989; USSR dissolved, 1991; Russian Republic became independent and a founder member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, 1991; war in Chechnya, 1994–6; further invasion of Chechnya, 1999, with subsequent terrorist attacks in Moscow; Chechen-inspired attack at a school in Beslan, N Ossetia, resulting in over 330 deaths, Sep 2004; conflict ongoing into 2006; governed by a president, prime minister, and Federal Assembly, consisting of a State Duma and a Federation Council.

Российская Федерация Rossiyskaya Federatsiya Russian Federation
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: none
Anthem: Hymn of the Russian Federation
Capital (largest city)	Moscow 55°45′N 37°37′E
Official language	Russian, many others in component republics
Government	Semi-presidential federal republic
- President of Russia	Vladimir Putin
- Prime Minister	Mikhail Fradkov
Independence	from the Soviet Union
- Declared	June 12, 1991
- Finalized	December 25, 1992
Area
- Total	17,075,400 km² (1st) 6,592,800 sq mi
- Water (%)	13
Population
- 2006 estimate	142,400,000 (7th)
- 2002 census	145,164,000
- Density	8.3/km² (209th) 21.8/sq mi
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
- Total	$1.576 trillion (10th1)
- Per capita	$11,041 (62nd)
HDI  (2003)	0.795 (medium) (62nd)
Currency	Ruble (RUB)
Time zone	(UTC+2 to +12)
- Summer (DST)	(UTC+3 to +13)
Internet TLD	.ru (.su reserved)
Calling code	+7
1 Rank based on April 2006 IMF data.

Russia (Russian: Росси́я, Rossiya; Russia shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from NW to SE): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea.

Formerly the dominant republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia is now an independent country and an influential member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, since the Union's dissolution in December 1991. During the Soviet era, Russia was officially called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Russia is considered the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic matters.

Most of the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet Union, then one of the world's two superpowers, lay in Russia. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's global role was greatly diminished compared to that of the former Soviet Union. In October 2005, the federal statistics agency reported that Russia's population has shrunk by more than half a million people dipping to 143 million, although Russia became the second country in the world by the number of immigrants from abroad.

History

Ancient Rus

Prior to the Christian Era, the vast lands of Southern Russia were home to un-united tribes, such as Proto-Indo-Europeans and Scythians.

The Early East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in Western Russia from the seventh century onwards and slowly assimilated the native Finno-Ugric tribes, such as the Merya, the Muromians and the Meshchera.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries common era, the constant incursions of nomadic Turkish tribes, such as the Kipchaks and the Pechenegs, led to the massive migration of Slavic populations from the fertile south to the heavily forested regions of the north, known as Zalesye.

Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongol invaders, who formed the state of Golden Horde which would pillage the Russian principalities for over three centuries. Later known as the Tatars, they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-day Russia, while the territories of present-day Ukraine and Belarus were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland, thus dividing the Russian people in the north from the Belarusians and Ukrainians in the west.

Similarly to the Balkans and Asia Minor, long-lasting nomadic rule retarded the country's economic and social development.

Muscovy

Unlike its spiritual leader the Byzantine Empire, Russia under the leadership of Moscow was able to revive and organized its own war of reconquest, finally subjugating its enemies and annexing their territories. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Muscovite Russia remained the only more or less functional Christian state on the Eastern European frontier, allowing it to claim succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire.

While still under the domain of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance, the duchy of Moscow began to assert its influence in Western Russia in the early fourteenth century. Ivan the Great (ruled) eventually tossed off the control of the invaders, consolidated surrounding areas under Moscow's dominion and first took the title "grand duke of all the Russias".

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Russian state set the national goal to return all Russian territories lost as a result of the Tatar invasion and to protect the southern borderland against attacks of Crimean Tatars and other Turkic peoples.

In 1547, Ivan the Terrible was officially crowned the first Tsar of Russia.

Imperial Russia

Muscovite control of the nascent nation continued after the Polish intervention of under the subsequent Romanov dynasty, beginning with Tsar Michael Romanov in 1613.

Catherine the Great, ruling from 1762 to 1796, continued the Petrine efforts at establishing Russia as one of the great powers of Europe. As a result of the victorious Russian-Turkish wars, Russia's borders expanded to the Black Sea and Russia set its goal on the protection of Balkan Christians against a Turkish yoke. In 1783, Russia and the Georgian Kingdom (which was almost totally devastated by Persian and Turkish invasions) signed the treaty of Georgievsk according to which Georgia received the protection of Russia.

In 1812, having gathered nearly half a million soldiers from France, as well as from all of its conquered states in Europe, Napoleon invaded Russia but, after taking Moscow, was forced to retreat back to Europe.

The perseverance of Russian serfdom and the conservative policies of Nicholas I of Russia impeded the development of Imperial Russia in the mid-nineteenth century.

The failure of agrarian reforms and suppression of the growing liberal intelligentsia were continuing problems however, and on the eve of World War I, the position of Tsar Nicholas II and his dynasty appeared precarious.

At the close of this Russian Revolution of 1917, a Marxist political faction called the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd and Moscow under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. [citation needed)

Russia as part of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was meant to be a trans-national worker's state free from nationalism. The concept of Russia as a separate national entity was therefore not emphasized in the early Soviet Union.

Stalin forced rapid industrialization of the largely rural country and collectivization of its agriculture.

After the Great Patriotic War started in 1941 the German army had considerable success in the early stages of the campaign, they suffered defeat when they reached the outskirts of Moscow.

Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged superpower.

During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, with control always exerted exclusively from Moscow.

Khrushchev

Under Khrushchev, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, and the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth.

Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, lasting until Leonid Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the pre-eminent figure in Soviet political life.

Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and a market economy to replace the strict centralized social, political, and economic controls of the Soviet era.

Post-Soviet Russia

See also: Politics of Russia

Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin had been elected President of Russia in June 1991 in the first direct presidential election in Russian history. In October 1991, as Russia was on the verge of independence, Yeltsin announced that Russia would proceed with radical market-oriented reform along the lines of "shock therapy".

After the disintegration of the USSR, the Russian economy went through a crisis.

Russia's Congress of People's Deputies, in which the Communist presence was the strongest, attempted to impeach Yeltsin on March 26, 1993.

After Yeltsin's presidency in the 1990s, the former head of the FSB Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000. Although President Putin is still the most popular Russian politician, with a 70% approval rating, his policies raised serious concerns about civil society and human rights in Russia.

At the same time, high oil prices and growing internal demand boosted Russian economic growth, stimulating significant economic expansion abroad and helping to finance increased military spending.

Despite the economic distress and decreased military funding following the fall of the Soviet Union, the country retains its large weapons and especially nuclear weapons arsenal.

Politics

The politics of Russia (the Russian Federation) take place in a framework of a federal presidential republic, whereby the President of Russia is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system.

Administrative divisions

Federal subjects

The basic subdivision of the Russian Federation is that of the federal subject.

See also Federal subjects of Russia Republics of Russia Oblasts of Russia Krais of Russia Autonomous oblasts of Russia Autonomous okrugs of Russia Federal cities of Russia Federal districts of Russia

Geography and climate

The Russian Federation stretches across much of the north of the supercontinent of Eurasia.

Most of the land consists of vast plains, both in the European part and the part of Asian territory, that is largely known as Siberia.

Russia has an extensive coastline of over 37,000 kilometres (23,000 mi) along the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, as well as more or less inland seas such as the Baltic, Black and Caspian seas. the Barents Sea, White Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea are part of the Arctic, whereas the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan belong to the Pacific Ocean.

Major islands found in them include Novaya Zemlya, the Franz Josef Land, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. The Diomede Islands (one controlled by Russia, the other by the United States) are just three kilometres (1.9 mi) apart, and Kunashir Island (controlled by Russia but claimed by Japan) is about twenty kilometres (12 mi) from Hokkaido.

Many rivers flow across Russia;

Borders

The most practical way to describe Russia is as a main part (a large contiguous portion with its off-shore islands) and an exclave, Kaliningrad, (at the southeast corner of the Baltic Sea).

The main part's borders and coasts (starting in the far northwest and proceeding counter-clockwise) are:

borders with the following countries: Norway and Finland, a short coast on the Baltic Sea, facing eight other countries on its shores from Finland to Estonia and including the port of St. Petersburg, borders with Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine, a coast on the Black Sea, facing five other countries on its shores from Ukraine to Georgia, borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan, a coast on the Caspian Sea, facing four other countries on its shores from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan, borders with Kazakhstan, China (western), Mongolia, China (eastern), and North Korea. an extensive coastline that provides access to all the maritime nations of the world, and stretches from the North Pacific Ocean including the Sea of Japan (where the west shore of Russia's Sakhalin lies), the Sea of Okhotsk (where the east shore of Sakhalin and its Kurile Islands lie), and the Bering Sea, through the Bering Strait (where its minor island of Big Diomede is separated by only a few miles from Little Diomede, a part of the US state of Alaska), to the Arctic Ocean, including the Chukchi Sea (where the south and east shores of its Wrangel Island lie), the East Siberian Sea (where its west shore, and the east shores of its New Siberian Islands lie), the Laptev Sea (where their west shores lie), the Kara Sea (where the east shore of its Novaya Zemlya lies), the Barents Sea (where their west shore, the south shores of its Franz-Josef Land the port of Murmansk and important naval facilities lie, and where the White Sea reaches far inland).

The Baltic and Black Sea coasts of Russia have less direct and more constrained access to the high seas than its Pacific and Arctic ones, but both are nevertheless important for that purpose. The Baltic gives immediate access to the nine other countries sharing its shores, and between the main part of Russia and its Kaliningrad Oblast exclave.

Spatial extent

The two most widely separated points in Russia are about 8,000 km (5,000 mi) apart along a geodesic (i.e.

The Russian Federation spans eleven time zones.

Largest cities

As of 2005 Russia has 13 cities with over a million inhabitants.

Rank	City/town	Russian	Federal subject	Population
1	Moscow	Москва	Moscow	10,342,151
2	Saint Petersburg	Санкт-Петербург	Saint Petersburg	4,661,219
3	Novosibirsk	Новосибирск	Novosibirsk Oblast	1,425,508
4	Nizhny Novgorod	Нижний Новгород	Nizhny Novgorod Oblast	1,311,252
5	Yekaterinburg	Екатеринбург	Sverdlovsk Oblast	1,293,537
6	Samara	Самара	Samara Oblast	1,157,880
7	Omsk	Омск	Omsk Oblast	1,134,016
8	Kazan	Казань	Republic of Tatarstan	1,105,289
9	Chelyabinsk	Челябинск	Chelyabinsk Oblast	1,077,174
10	Rostov-na-Donu	Ростов-на-Дону	Rostov Oblast	1,068,267
11	Ufa	Уфа	Republic of Bashkortostan	1,042,437
12	Volgograd	Волгоград	Volgograd Oblast	1,011,417
13	Perm	Пермь	Perm Krai	1,001,653

See also: List of cities in Russia and List of cities and towns in Russia by population

Economy

Introduction

More than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia is now trying to further develop a market economy and achieve more consistent economic growth. Russia saw its comparatively developed centrally planned economy contract severely for five years, as the executive and the legislature dithered over the implementation of reforms and Russia's aging industrial base faced a serious decline.

Crash

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's first slight recovery, showing signs of open-market influence, occurred in 1997.

Recovery

Nevertheless, the economy started recovering in 1999. The country is presently running a huge trade surplus, which has been helped by protective import barriers, and rampant corruption which ensures that it is almost impossible for foreign and local SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) to import goods without the help of local specialist import firms, such as the Russia Import Company.

The recent recovery, made possible due to high world oil prices, along with a renewed government effort in 2000 and 2001 to advance lagging structural reforms, has raised business and investor confidence over Russia's prospects in its second decade of transition. Russia remains heavily dependent on exports of commodities, particularly oil, natural gas, metals, and timber, which account for about 80% of exports, leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world prices.

The economic development of the country has been extremely uneven: the Moscow region contributes one-third of the country's GDP while having only a tenth of its population.

Recent economy

The country's GDP (PPP) soared to $1.5 trillion in 2004, making it the ninth largest economy in the world and the fifth largest in Europe.

In 2005, according to the Federal Service of State Statistics, GDP reached $765 billion nominally (21.7 trillion rubles), equal to $1.6 trillion in international dollars (PPP;

In 2005 Russia exported $241.3 billion dollars and imported $98.5 billion dollars.

By August 17, 2006, Russia's international reserves reached $277 billion nominally and projected to grow to $320 billion by the end of this year and to $350–450 billion by the end of 2007 .

Thanks to high oil prices, russian oil exports totalled $117 billion in 2005 while gas exports totalled $32 billion in the same year.

Knowing the importance of oil and gas to the economy, a Stabilization Fund was formed by the government in January 2004. Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said in October 2006 the fund will continue to increase over the coming years, and will exceed $149 billion by late 2007 and about $260.4 billion by the end of 2009.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia, the monthly nominal average salary in June 2006 was about 10,975 roubles (about $408 nominally;

For the year of 2007, Russia's GDP is projected to grow to about $1.2 trillion nominally (31.2 billion rubles)

Challenge

Some perceive the greatest challenge facing the Russian economy to be encouraging the development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in a business climate with a young and less-than-sufficient functional banking system. The 2005 Milken Institute's ratings place Russia at the 51st place in the world, out of 121 countries by the availability of capital.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank have attempted to kick-start normal banking practices by making equity and debt investments in a number of banks, but with very limited success.

However, about twenty-five of the biggest banks of Russia get entry into Top 1000 banks of the world by The Banker .

Other problems include disproportional economic development of Russia's own regions.

The arrest of Russia's wealthiest businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of fraud and corruption in relation to the large-scale privatizations organized under then-President Yeltsin, contrary to some expectations, has not caused most foreign investors to worry about the stability of the Russian economy.

Prospect

Encouraging foreign investment is also a major challenge due to legal, some cultural, linguistic, economic and political peculiarities of the country.

Amazingly high levels of education and societal involvement achieved by the majority of the population, including women and minorities, secular attitudes, mobile class structure, better integration of various minorities in the mainstream culture set Russia far apart from the majority of the so-called developing countries and even some developed nations.

The country is also benefiting from rising oil prices and has been able to pay off all of its formerly huge debt.

Additionally, some international firms are investing in Russia.

Russia faces considerable income inequalities that hinder Russia's potential to become a more diversified economy.

Demographics

Despite its comparatively high population, Russia has a low average population density due to its enormous size. Population is densest in the European part of Russia, in the Ural Mountains area, and in the south-western parts of Siberia;

The Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian.

The Russian Orthodox Church is the dominant Christian religion in the Federation.

Culture

Cinema of Russia Russian traditions and superstitions Ethnic Russian music List of Russians Music of Russia Russian architecture Russian cuisine Russian humour Russian literature Russian-language poets Russian formalism Russian folklore

Etymology

See wiktionary: Russia for the name in various languages.

The name of the country derives from the name of the Rus' people.