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The Russian Federation (Template:Lang-ru, transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija), or Russia (Russian: Росси́я, transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija), is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of Europe and Asia. With an area of 17,075,400 km² (6,595,600 mi²), it is the largest country in the world, covering almost twice the territory of the next-largest country, Canada. It ranks eighth in the world in population. It shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from NW to SE): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (only through Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with the United States, Canada, and Japan.

Российская Федерация Rossiyskaya Federatsiya Russian Federation
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: none
Anthem: Hymn of the Russian Federation
Capitaland largest city	Moscow
Official languages	Russian, many others in component republics
Government	Semi-presidential federation
Independence
• Water (%)	0.5
Population
• 2005 estimate	143,420,309 (8th)
• 2000 census	N/A
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
• Total	$1.486 trillion (9th)
• Per capita	$11,209 (61st)
Currency	Ruble (RUB)
Time zone	UTC+2 to +12
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 to -1
Calling code	7
ISO 3166 code	RU
Internet TLD	.ru, .su reserved

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 Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Russia is usually 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 USSR, Russia's global role was diminished. Since then, its influence has grown, but is still far from that of the former Soviet Union.

History

Ancient Rus

The vast lands of present Russia were home to disunited tribes who were variously overwhelmed by invading Goths, Huns, and Turkish Avars between the third and sixth centuries CE. The Iranian Scythians populated the southern steppes, and a Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled the western portion of these lands through the 8th century. They in turn were displaced by a group of Scandinavians, the Varangians, who established a capital at the Slavic city of Novgorod and gradually merged with Slavs. The Slavs constituted the bulk of the population from the 8th century onwards and slowly assimilated both the Scandinavians as well as native Finno-Ugric tribes, such as the Merya, the Muromians and the Meshchera.

The Varangian dynasty lasted several centuries, during which they affiliated with the Byzantine, or Orthodox church and moved the capital to Kiev in 1169 A.D. In this era the term "Rhos", or "Russ", first came to be applied to the Varangians and later also to the Slavs who peopled the region. In the 10th to 11th centuries this state of Kievan Rus became the largest in Europe and was quite prosperous, due to diversified trade with both Europe and Asia.

In the 13th century the area suffered from internal disputes and was overrun by eastern invaders, the Golden Horde of the pagan Mongols and Muslim Turkic-speaking nomads who pillaged the Russian principalities for over three centuries. Also known as the Tatars, they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-day Russia, while its western zone was largely incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. The political dissolution of Kievan Rus divided the Russian people in the north from the Belarusians and Ukrainians in the west.

The northern part of Russia together with Novgorod retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke and was largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the country. Nevertheless it had to fight the Germanic crusaders who attempted to colonize the region.

Like in the Balkans and Asia Minor long-lasting nomadic rule retarded the country's economic and social development. Asian autocratic influences degraded many of the country's democratic institutions and affected its culture and economy in a very negative way.

In spite of this, unlike its spiritual leader, the Byzantine Empire, Russia 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 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.

Imperial Russia

While still nominally under the domain of the Mongols, the duchy of Moscow began to assert its influence, and eventually tossed off the control of the invaders late in the 14th century. Ivan the Terrible, the first leader designated Tsar (from the Roman Caesar, also written Czar) of Russia, finalized this process, consolidated surrounding areas under Moscow's dominion, and annexed the vast expanses of Siberia. The Russian Empire was born.

Muscovite control of the nascent nation continued under the subsequent Romanov dynasty, beginning with Tsar Michael Romanov in 1613. Peter the Great, who ruled from 1689 to 1725, succeeded in bringing ideas and culture from Western Europe to a Russia which had been affected by primitive nomadic cultures. Catherine the Great, ruling from 1762 to 1796, enhanced this effort, establishing Russia not just as an Asian power, but on an equal footing with Britain, France, and Germany in Europe. Unrest of the downtrodden serfs and suppression of the growing Intelligentsia were continuing problems however, and on the eve of World War I, the position of Tsar Nicholas II and his dynasty appeared precarious. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the Romanovs.

At the close of this Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik wing of the Communist Party under Vladimir Lenin seized power and formed the USSR. Rule of Joseph Stalin forced rapid industrialization of the largely rural country and collectivization of its agriculture at the cost of millions of lives. Stalin also strengthened Russian dominance within the Soviet Union.

Russia as part of Soviet Union

In 1928 Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. The Soviet Union became a major industrial power; but the plan's implementation produced widespread misery for some segments of the population. Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s, when Stalin began a purge of the party (see Great Purges); out of this process grew a campaign of terror that led to the execution of thousands and imprisonment of millions from all walks of life (see Gulag). Yet despite this turmoil, the Soviet Union developed a powerful industrial economy in the years before World War II.

Although Stalin tried to avert war with Germany by concluding the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in 1939, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The Red Army stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 (see Great Patriotic War). Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged great power.

During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, with control always exerted exclusively from Moscow. The Soviet Union consolidated its hold on Eastern Europe (see Eastern bloc), and sought to expand its influence elsewhere in the world. This active foreign policy helped bring about the Cold War, which turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, into foes.

Stalin died in 1953, and in the absence of an acceptable successor, Stalin's closest associates opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly. After a protracted power struggle, General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the undisputed leader of the USSR. During this period the Soviet Union launched the first satellite Sputnik 1 and man Yuri Gagarin into orbit. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive, and foreign policy toward China and the United States suffered reverses. Khrushchev's colleagues in the leadership removed him from power in 1964.

Following the ouster of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, lasting until Leonid Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union, the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change.

In the mid and late 1980s, the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize Soviet communism. However, his initiatives inadvertently unleashed forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into 15 independent republics (see History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)). Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and market economy to replace the strict social, political, and economic controls of the Soviet era.

Post-Soviet 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 Poland's "big bang," also known as "shock therapy."

Russia's Congress of People's Deputies attempted to impeach Yeltsin on 1993-03-26. Yeltsin's opponents gathered more than 600 votes for impeachment, but fell 72 votes short. On 1993-09-21, Yeltsin disbanded the Supreme Soviet and Congress of People's Deputies by decree, which was illegal under the constitution. On September 21 there was a military showdown, the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993. With military help, Yeltsin held control. The conflict that resulted in a number of civilian casualties was resolved in Yeltsin's favor and elections were held on 1993-12-12.

Since the separatist republic Chechnya declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war (First Chechen War, Second Chechen War) has been fought between disparate Chechen groups and the Russian military. Some of these groups have become increasingly Islamist over the course of the struggle. It is estimated that over 200,000 people have died in this conflict. Minor conflicts also exist in North Ossetia and Ingushetia.

After Yeltsin's presidency in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000. Under Putin, the increased state control of the Russian media has raised Western concerns about human rights in Russia.

Politics

The Russian Federation is a federal republic with a president, directly elected for a four-year term, who holds considerable executive power. The president, who resides in the Kremlin, nominates the highest state officials, including the prime minister (or premier), who must be approved by the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament. The president can pass decrees (executive orders) without consent from Parliament and is also head of the armed forces and of the Russian National Security Council.

Russia's bicameral parliament, the Federal Assembly (Russian: Федеральное Собрание, English transliteration: Federalnoye Sobraniye) consists of an upper house known as the Federation Council (Совет Федерации, Sovet Federatsii), composed of 178 delegates serving a four-year term (two are appointed from each of the 89 federal subjects), and a lower house known as the State Duma (Государственная Дума, Gosudarstvennaya Duma), comprising 450 deputies also serving a four-year term, of which 225 are elected by direct popular vote from single member constituencies and 225 are elected by proportional representation from nation-wide party lists.

Currently (April 2005), the legislation to change this is being debated. If passed, all 450 members of the Duma will be elected from party lists. Next elections are to be held in winter 2007/2008.

Subdivisions

See also: Federal districts of Russia, Federal subjects of Russia, Republics of Russia, Oblasts of Russia, Krais of Russia, Autonomous Oblasts of Russia, Autonomous Districts of Russia, Federal cities of Russia.

The Russian Federation consists of a great number of different federal subjects, making a total of 89 constituent components. There are 21 republics within the federation that enjoy a high degree of autonomy on most issues and these correspond to some of Russia's ethnic minorities. The remaining territory consists of 49 oblasts (provinces) and 6 krais (territories), in which are found 10 autonomous okrugs (autonomous districts) and 1 autonomous oblast. Beyond these there are 2 federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg). Recently, 7 extensive federal districts (four in Europe, three in Asia) have been added as a new layer between the above subdivisions and the national level.

Geography

The Russian Federation stretches across much of the north of the supercontinent of Eurasia. Although it contains a large share of the world's Arctic and sub-Arctic areas, and therefore has less population, economic activity, and physical variety per unit area than most countries, the great area south of these still accommodates a great variety of landscapes and climates. Most of the land consists of vast plains, both in the European part and the Asian part that is largely known as Siberia. These plains are predominantly steppe to the south and heavily forested to the north, with tundra along the northern coast. Mountain ranges are found along the southern borders, such as the Caucasus (containing Mount Elbrus, Russia's and Europe's highest point at 5,633 m) and the Altai, and in the eastern parts, such as the Verkhoyansk Range or the volcanoes on Kamchatka. The more central Ural Mountains, a north-south range that form the primary divide between Europe and Asia, are also notable.

Russia has an extensive coastline of over 37,000 km along the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, as well as more or less inland seas such as the Baltic, Black and Caspian seas. Some smaller bodies of water are part of the open oceans; 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. (See List of islands of Russia).

Many rivers flow across Russia. See Rivers of Russia.

Major lakes include Lake Baikal, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. See List of lakes in 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 (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, Mongolia, China again, and North Korea,
• an extensive coastline that provides access with 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 exclave, constituted by the Kaliningrad Oblast,

• shares borders with
  • Poland to its south and
  • Lithuania to its north and east, and
• has a northwest coast on the Baltic Sea.

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 with the nine other countries sharing its shores, and between the main part of Russia and its Kaliningrad Oblast exclave. Via the straits that lie within Denmark, and between it and Sweden, the Baltic connects to the North Sea and the oceans to its west and north. The Black Sea gives immediate access with the five other countries sharing its shores, and via the Dardanelles and Marmora straits adjacent to Istanbul, Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea with its many countries and its access, via the Suez Canal and the Straits of Gibraltar, to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The salt waters of the Caspian Sea, the world's largest lake, afford no access with the high seas.

Spatial extent

The two most widely separated points in Russia are about 8,000 km (5000 mi) apart along a geodesic (i.e. shortest line between two points on the Earth's surface). These points are: the boundary with Poland on a 60-km-long (40-mi-long) spit of land separating the Gulf of Gdańsk from the Vistula Lagoon; and the farthest southeast of the Kurile Islands, a few miles off Hokkaido Island, Japan.

It is also often mentioned that the Russian federation spans eleven time zones. However, this is confusing because the points which are furthest separated in longitude are "only" 6,600 km (4,100 mi) apart along a geodesic. These points are: in the West, the same spit; in the East, the Big Diomede Island (Ostrov Ratmanova).

See also: List of cities in Russia

Economy

More than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia is now trying to establish a market economy and achieve consistent economic growth. Russia saw its comparatively developed centrally-planned economy contract severely for five years, as the executive and legislature dithered over the implementation of reforms and Russia's industrial base faced a serious decline. Moreover, an emergency livestock shortage in 1987, which triggered large-scale international aid, severely bruised the ego, as well as the economy, of the emerging Russian state.

After the breakup of the USSR, Russia's first slight recovery, showing the signs of open-market influence, occurred in 1997. That year, however,Asian financial crisis culminated in the August depreciation of the ruble in 1998, a debt default by the government, and a sharp deterioration in living standards for most of the population. Consequently, the year 1998 was marked by recession and intense capital flight.

Nevertheless, the economy mildly recovered in 1999. Then it entered a phase of rapid economic expansion, the GDP growing by an average of 6% annually in 1999-2005 on the back of higher petroleum prices, weaker ruble, and increasing service production and industrial output. The economic development of the country, however, has been extremely uneven: the capital region of Moscow contributes a third to the country's GDP having only a tenth of its population.

The rise of China has had much to do with the turnaround in the Russian economy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia has been de-industrialised and while this has been embarrassing, it has also ensured that Russia no longer has to compete with the Chinese in this field. Russia has avoided the trap that Italy finds itself in, that is low cost manufacturing which no European nation can compete with China in. Instead Russia has become a large commodity exporter and the sharp increase in demand in commodities caused by China has changed the terms of trade dramatically in Russia's favour. The price that Russia receives for Gas, Oil and Timber has gone up while the price of manufactured consumer goods has gone down due to China's low cost manufacturing. Since Oil, Gas and Timber are fungible commodities, the increase in demand by China increases the price that Russia receives regardless of whether they sell it to China or Germany. Russia has also benefited in that the one area of industrial production where it has had an edge, military production is heavily demanded by China in it's showdown with the U.S. and since other European nations and America is unwilling to sell to China, Russia has an effective monopoly on the Chinese arms market. China's rise has been most beneficial for nations which are heavy commodity and service exporters while being heavy importers of manufactured goods. Australia fits this description perfectly and Russia has been close behind. The rise of few nations in history has had the effect that China has, and in the case of Russia, China happens to be a complementary economy. It is worth noting that the Russian economy in the last five years has been growing faster than any other in the developed world. Few could have predicted the utter collapse of the Soviet Union and it would take only the very brave to proclaim that the days of Russia as a global power is over. Barring any catastrophe, Russia will within twenty five years become the largest European economy overtaking even Germany.

This recovery, 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. In recent years, however, the economy has also been driven by growing internal consumer demand that has increased by over 12% annually in 2000-2005, showing the strengthening of its own internal market.

The country's GDP shot up to reach €1.2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) in 2004, making it the ninth largest economy in the world and the fifth largest in Europe. If the current growth rate is sustained, the country is expected to become the second largest European economy after Germany (€1.9 trillion or $2.3 trillion) and the sixth largest in the world within a few years.

The greatest challenge facing the Russian economy is how to encourage the development of SME (small and medium sized enterprises) in a business climate with a young and dysfunctional banking system, dominated by Russian oligarchs. Many of Russia's banks are owned by entrepreneurs or oligarchs, who often use the deposits to lend to their own businesses.

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.

Other problems include disproportional economic development of Russia's own regions. While the huge capital region of Moscow is a bustling, affluent metropolis living on the cutting edge of technology with a per capita income rapidly approaching that of the leading Eurozone economies, much of the country, especially its indigenous and rural communities in Asia, lags significantly behind. Market integration is nonetheless making itself felt in some other sizeable cities such as Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad, and Ekaterinburg.

Encouraging foreign investment is also a major challenge. So far, the country is benefiting from rising oil prices and has been able to pay off much of its formerly huge debt. Equal redistribution of capital gains from the natural resource industries to other sectors is also a problem. Teaching customers and encouraging consumer spending is a relatively tough task for many provincial areas where consumer demand is primitive, although some laudable progress has already been made in larger cities especially in clothing, food, entertainment industries.

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 has caused many foreign investors to worry about the stability of the Russian economy. Most of the large fortunes currently prevailing in Russia seem to be the product of either acquiring government assets particularly at low costs or gaining concessions from the government. Other countries have expressed concerns and worries at the "selective" application of the law against individual businessmen.

However, some international firms are investing heavily in Russia. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Russia had nearly $26 billion in cumulative foreign direct investment inflows during the 2001-2004 period (of which $11.7 billion occurred last year alone).

Demographics

Despite its comparatively very 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 south-eastern part of Siberia that meets the Pacific Ocean, known as the Russian Far East, is sparsely populated, with its southern part being densest. The Russian Federation is home to as many as 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. As of the 2002 census, 79.8% of the population is ethnically Russian, 3.8% Tatar, 2% Ukrainian, 1.2% Bashkir, 1.1% Chuvash, 0.9% Chechen, 0.8% Armenian, and the remaining 10.3% includes those who did not specify their ethnicity as well as (in alphabetical order) Avars, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Chinese, Evenks, Georgians, Germans, Ingushes, Inuit, Kalmyks, Karelians, Kazakhs, Koreans, Maris, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians, Poles, Tuvans, Udmurts, Yakuts, and others.

The Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian. Cyrillic alphabet is the only official script, which means that these languages must be written in Cyrillic in official texts. The Russian Orthodox Church is the dominant Christian religion in the Federation; other religions include Islam, various Protestant faiths, Judaism, Roman Catholicism and Buddhism.

Culture

• Cinema of Russia
• List of famous Russians
• Music of Russia
• Russian architecture
• Russian cuisine
• Russian humour
• Russian literature
  • List of Russian language poets
  • Russian formalism
  • Russian folklore
• Russian music
• Russian painting
• Russian theatre

Miscellaneous topics

• Buddhism in Russia
• Communications in Russia
• Education in Russia
• Foreign relations of Russia
• History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
• Islam in Russia
• Judaism in Russia
• Law of the Russian Federation
• List of Russian companies
• Military of Russia
• Postage stamps and postal history of Russia
• Public holidays in Russia
• Reporters without borders Worldwide Index of Press Freedom, 2002: Russia ranked 121 out of 139 indexed countries
• Runglish or "Russlish"
• Tourism in Russia
• Transportation in Russia

References

• The New Columbia Encyclopedia, Col.Univ.Press, 1975

Sarnov, Benedikt. "Stop Being Surprised: Vignettes of Soviet Literary and Other Life," Infinity Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-7414-2208-3

External links

Government resources

• Duma - Official site of the parliamentary lower house (in Russian)
• Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United States
• Federative Council - Official site of the parliamentary upper house
• Gov.ru - Official governmental portal (in Russian)
• Kremlin - Official presidential site (in English)
• Official site: Federal Cadaster Center of Russia - Administrative maps of Russia (legends in Russian)
• Russia Energy Resources and Industry from U.S. Department of Energy
• Russian Economy: Bank of Finland
• U.S. State Department Consular Information Sheet: Russia
• Webcam in Russia

General information

• Russia Profile
• Country Profile by BBC
• Country Facts by CIA
• German-Russian Exchange NGO that connects volunteers to ngo's in Russia (not only Germans)
• Government links
• Impressions of Soviet Russia, by John Dewey
• Johnson's Russia List Archive
• Russia News
• Russian Federal Districts (legends in English)
• The Russia Journal - An independent news and analysis source from Russia.
• English Edition of Pravda

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• Federalism
• Bicontinental countries
• Black Sea countries
• Asian countries
• Southwest Asian countries
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