Worldstage July: Russian Federation

from Encyclopædia Britannica

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513251/Russia

Country, eastern Europe and northern Asia, formerly the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Area: 6,592,800 sq mi (17,075,400 sq km).

Population (2009 est.): 141,852,000.

Capital: Moscow. The population is primarily Russian; minorities include Tatars and Ukrainians.

Languages: Russian (official), various Turkic and Uralic languages.

Religions: Christianity (mostly Eastern Orthodox, also Protestant); also Islam. However, about one-third of the people are nonreligious or atheist.

Currency: ruble.

The land and its environments are varied, including the Ural Mountains and ranges in eastern Siberia, the highest peaks being on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Russian Plain contains the great Volga and Northern Dvina rivers, and in Siberia 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 federal multiparty republic with a bicameral legislative body; its head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister.

What is now the territory of Russia was inhabited from ancient times by various peoples, including the Slavs. From the 8th century bce to the 6th century ce the area was overrun by successive nomadic peoples, including the Sythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, and Avars. Kievan Rus, a confederation of principalities ruling from Kiev, emerged c. the 10th century; it lost supremacy in the 11th–12th century to independent principalities, including 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 century. In the 14th–15th century the princes of Moscow gradually overthrew the Mongols.

Under Ivan IV (the Terrible), Russia began to expand. The Romanov dynasty arose in 1613. Expansion continued under Peter I (the Great) and Catherine II (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 century. The Russian southward advance against the Ottoman Empire was of key importance to Europe (see Crimea). Russia was defeated in the Crimean War (1853–56). Chinese cession of the Amur River’s left bank in 1858 marked Russia’s expansion in East Asia. Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 (see Alaska Purchase). Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War led to an unsuccessful uprising in 1905 (see Russian Revolution of 1905).

In World War I Russia fought against the Central Powers. The popular overthrow of the tsarist 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 S.F.S.R. joined other soviet republics in 1922 to form the U.S.S.R.

Upon the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, the Russian S.F.S.R. was renamed and became the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It adopted a new constitution in 1993. During the 1990s and into the early 21st century, it struggled on several fronts, beset with economic difficulties, political corruption, and independence movements (see Chechnya).

The Russian Federation stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as theSoviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Russia is a land of superlatives. By far the world’s largest country, it covers nearly twice the territory of Canada, the second largest. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and the eastern third of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a great range of environments and landforms, from deserts to semiarid steppes to deep forests and Arctic tundra. Russia contains Europe’s longest river, the Volga, and its largest lake, Ladoga. Russia also is home to the world’s deepest lake, Baikal, and the country recorded the world’s lowest temperature outside the North and South poles.

The inhabitants of Russia are quite diverse. Most are ethnic Russians, but there also are more than 120 other ethnic groups present, speaking many languages and following disparate religious and cultural traditions. Most of the Russian population is concentrated in the European portion of the country, especially in the fertile region surrounding Moscow, the capital. Moscow and St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) are the two most important cultural and financial centres in Russia and are among the most picturesque cities in the world. Russians are also populous in Asia, however; beginning in the 17th century, and particularly pronounced throughout much of the 20th century, a steady flow of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people moved eastward into Siberia, where cities such as Vladivostok and Irkutsk now flourish.

Russia’s climate is extreme, with forbidding winters that have several times famously saved the country from foreign invaders. Although the climate adds a layer of difficulty to daily life, the land is a generous source of crops and materials, including vast reserves of oil, gas, and precious metals. That richness of resources has not translated into an easy life for most of the country’s people, however; indeed, much of Russia’s history has been a grim tale of the very wealthy and powerful few ruling over a great mass of their poor and powerless compatriots. Serfdom endured well into the modern era; the years of Soviet communist rule (1917–91), especially the long dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, saw subjugation of a different and more exacting sort.

The Russian republic was established immediately after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and became a union republic in 1922. During the post-World War II era, Russia was a central player in international affairs, locked in a Cold War struggle with the United States. In 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia joined with several other former Soviet republics to form a loose coalition, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Although the demise of Soviet-style communism and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union brought profound political and economic changes, including the beginnings of the formation of a large middle class, for much of the postcommunist era Russians had to endure a generally weak economy, high inflation, and a complex of social ills that served to lower life expectancy significantly. Despite such profound problems, Russia showed promise of achieving its potential as a world power once again, as if to exemplify a favourite proverb, stated in the 19th century by Austrian statesman Klemens, Fürst (prince) von Metternich: “Russia is never as strong as she appears, and never as weak as she appears.”

Russia can boast a long tradition of excellence in every aspect of the arts and sciences. Prerevolutionary Russian society produced the writings and music of such giants of world culture as Anton Chekhov, Aleksandr Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolay Gogol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The 1917 revolution and the changes it brought were reflected in the works of such noted figures as the novelists Maksim Gorky, Boris Pasternak, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the composers Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergey Prokofiev. And the late Soviet and postcommunist eras witnessed a revival of interest in once-forbidden artists such as the poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova while ushering in new talents such as the novelist Victor Pelevin and the writer and journalist Tatyana Tolstaya, whose celebration of the arrival of winter in St. Petersburg, a beloved event, suggests the resilience and stoutheartedness of her people:

The snow begins to fall in October. People watch for it impatiently, turning repeatedly to look outside. If only it would come! Everyone is tired of the cold rain that taps stupidly on windows and roofs. The houses are so drenched that they seem about to crumble into sand. But then, just as the gloomy sky sinks even lower, there comes the hope that the boring drum of water from the clouds will finally give way to a flurry of…and there it goes: tiny dry grains at first, then an exquisitely carved flake, two, three ornate stars, followed by fat fluffs of snow, then more, more, more—a great store of cotton tumbling down.

For the geography and history of the other former Soviet republics, see Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine. See also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.