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Russia
Nation, E Europe and N Asia, former republic of the U.S.S.R.. Area: 6,592,812 sq mi (17,075,383 sq km). Population (1997 est.): 147,231,000. Capital: Moscow. Most of the people are Russian; minorities include Tatars and Ukrainians. Languages: Russian (official), various Turkic and Uralic languages. Religion: Russian Orthodox Christianity, Islam, but most of the people are nonreligious. Currency: ruble. The land and its environments are varied, incl. the Ural Mtns. and ranges in E Siberia, with the highest peaks in Kamchatka. The Russian plain contains the great Volga and Northern Dvina rivers, and in the Siberian plain are the valleys of the Ob, Yenisey, Lena, and Amur rivers. Tundra covers extensive portions in the north, and in the south there are forests, steppes, and fertile areas. The economy was industrialized from 1917 to 1945 but was in serious decline by the 1980s. In 1992 the government decreed radical reforms to convert the centrally planned economy into a market economy based on private enterprise. Russia is a republic with a bicameral legislative body; its head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. The region between the Dniester and the Volga rivers was inhabited from ancient times by various peoples, incl. the Slavs. The area was overrun in the 8th cent. BC-6th cent. AD by successive nomadic peoples, incl. the Sythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, and Avars. Kievan Rus, a confederation of principalities ruling from Kiev, emerged c.10th cent. It lost supremacy in the 11th-12th cent. to independent principalities, incl. Novgorod and Vladimir. Novgorod ascended in the north and was the only Russian principality to escape the domination of the Mongol Golden Horde in the 13th cent. In the 14th-15th cent. the princes of Moscow gradually overthrew the Mongols. Under Ivan IV, Russia began to expand. The Romanov dynasty arose in 1613. Expansion continued under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. The area was invaded by Napoleon in 1812; after his defeat, Russia received most of the grand duchy of Warsaw (1815). Russia annexed Georgia, Armenia, and Caucasus territories in the 19th cent. The Russian southward advance against the Ottoman empire was of key importance to Europe (see Crimea). Russia was defeated in the Crimean War. Chinese cession of the Amur River's left bank in 1858 marked Russia's expansion in the Far East. It sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 (see Alaska Purchase). Its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War led to an unsuccessful uprising in 1905 (see Russian Revolution of 1905). In World War I it fought against the Central Powers. The popular overthrow of the Czarist regime in 1917 marked the beginning of a government of soviets (see Russian Revolution of 1917). The Bolsheviks brought the main part of the former empire under Communist control and organized it as the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (coextensive with present-day Russia). The Russian ...
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