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Formerly the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Russia has been an independent nation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. As part of the Soviet Union, it was called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, or the Russian Federation. With an area of 6,592,800 square miles (17,075,300 square kilometers), it is the world's largest country, almost twice the size of either China or the United States. Covering much of Eastern Europe as well as the whole of Northern Asia, Russia extends nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere. It stretches some 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) along the Arctic Circle and from 1,250 to 1,800 miles (2,000 to 2,900 kilometers) north to south. Its most characteristic landscape is a rolling to flat plain. Two such plains are divided by the Ural Mountains that form the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia (see Ural Mountains). In contrast, eastern Siberia is hilly to mountainous tableland. There are active volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands. More than 80 percent of the 149 million people who live in Russia are ethnic Russians. There are also some 75 ethnic groups. Almost three quarters of the people live in urban areas. The chief cities are St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhni Novgorod, and the capital, Moscow, which was also the capital of both the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union.
Russia has the longest border of any country on Earth. In the west it borders Norway, Finland, the Gulf of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Belarus. (A small exclave of Russia, Kaliningrad formerly East Prussia borders the Baltic Sea on the west, Poland on the south, and Lithuania on the east and north.) In the southwest Russia borders Ukraine, and in the south it touches the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and North Korea. In the east and north it borders various branches of the Pacific and Arctic oceans, respectively.
Russia contains two stable blocks the Eastern European and Siberian platforms. The suture that ties the two platforms together is the 250-million-year-old Ural Mountain chain. Around these platforms are folded mountain systems of younger ages. The platforms' ancient rocks (more than 550 million years old) are exposed on the Fenno-Scandian Shield, in the southern Urals, and on Siberia's Aldan and Anabar shields. The youngest materials are the sediments of the Azov-Caspian and West Siberian plains. The European part is covered by sediments except in the northwest (Kola-Karelia). The highest elevations outside the Urals in the west are in the Khibin Mountains of the Kola Peninsula some 3,000 feet (900 meters) above sea level. Elsewhere the region consists of low-lying plains and peat bogs, except in the Valday Hills, which have a maximum elevation of 1,138 feet (347 meters); the Smolensk-Moscow Ridge and the Central Russian Upland both approximately 1,000 feet (300 meters); and the pre-Volga Heights. The Valday Hills and Smolensk-Moscow Ridge are morainal deposits that trapped meltwater from Pleistocene glaciers and created proglacial lakes and marshes. On the southern lip of the Crimean Peninsula in neighboring Ukraine begins the first of a long string of bordering mountain ranges that penetrate into eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. The Crimean, or Yaila, Mountains are separated from the Greater Caucasus by the Kerch' Peninsula in Ukraine and Kerch' Strait. The Greater Caucasus are flanked on the north by the broad Stavropol' Upland. Many of the mountains of the range are igneous, including Mount El'brus at 18,481 feet (5,633 meters) the highest peak in Europe. The Ural Mountains are low-lying remnants of much higher ranges. The northern Urals are highest. The central Urals are lowest and are the location of the main transportation routes, including the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The southern Urals are of medium elevation but broad. For more than 200 million years the once-mighty Urals have been attacked by the Volga-Kama system and the rivers of the Ob' network. Sediments have filled basins on both sides of the divide, but none so remarkably as the West Siberian Plain. For 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the Urals eastward to the Yenisey, and for 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) north to south, the West Siberian Plain never rises more than approximately 600 feet (180 meters) above sea level. The Ob' River and its tributaries flow slowly across this massive "pool table" into the Arctic Ocean. When the southern tributaries swell with meltwater in the spring, the main trunk, the Ob', is still ice-dammed in the north. The flooding is extensive, creating the world's largest sphagnum bog, the Vasyugan Swamps, on the world's largest plain. East of the Yenisey River lies the Central Siberian Plateau, from which flow the major tributaries of the Yenisey and Lena. In the south the mountain arc continues as the Altai Range, where the Ob' River is born. Two arms of the Altai system confine a valley of the Tom' River, a right-bank tributary of the Ob'. Within the valley (the Kuznetsk Basin), deposits of high-quality coal have been unearthed. The Altai merges with the Sayan Range in the east. Beyond the Sayans is Lake Baikal (or Baykal), in an active rift valley that is separating at a rate of 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) per year. Baikal's surface area is relatively unimpressive the size of Belgium but it is the world's deepest lake. More than 1 mile (1,600 meters) deep in the late 1980s, Baikal gets deeper with every earthquake, and in several million years it will become a new ocean. It contains a fifth of the world's fresh water more water than all five of the Great Lakes of North America combined. If Baikal could be drained, it would take all the rivers of the Earth nearly a year to fill it again. Truly unique on Earth, Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world. (See also Baikal.) Lake Baikal forms a tectonic divide. In the west is the pre-Baikal Upland. In the east is Transbaikalia, which merges in the southeast with the Yablonovyy Range. Swinging arclike first eastward and then northward along the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk are the Stanovoy, Dzhugdzhur, and Kolyma ranges. The Anadyr', Koryak, and Kamchatka ranges compose the Chukchi and Kamchatka peninsulas. The latter is one of the Earth's most volcanically active regions. This is also true of the Kuril (derived from the Russian verb "to smoke") Islands. In the southeast the Amur River is flanked in the north by the Bureya Range and in the south by the Sikhote-Alin'. Deep in the interior along the eastern bank of the Lena is the Verkhoyansk Range, which links with the Cherskiy Range. In eastern Siberia lowlands are dispersed. The Central Siberian Lowland divides the same-named upland from the hilly Taymyr Peninsula. The Lena River creates the Central Yakut Lowland in its middle course near Yakutsk. Likewise the Kolyma Lowland is the product of the Kolyma River's winding course. Along the Amur is the fertile Zeya-Bureya Plain, and along the Ussuri River, a right-bank tributary of the Amur, is the Ussuri Lowland.
Of its 100,000 rivers, Russia contains some of the world's longest. Of these five the shortest, the Volga, is the most famous not only because it is the longest river in Europe but also because of its major role in Russian history. The other four are in Asia: Ob'-Irtysh, Amur, Lena, and Yenisey. All but the Amur flow northward into the Arctic Ocean. The "Mother Volga" flows southward but into the world's largest "lake," the landlocked, saltwater Caspian Sea. Finally, 336 rivers flow into Lake Baikal, and only one, the mighty Angara, a tributary of the Yenisey, flows out. If all 336 influents ceased to flow, it would take the Angara 307 years to drain the lake. The Land of Lakes is in Karelia south to the Valday Hills. Here Pleistocene glaciers left thousands of bodies of water as they receded. The largest of these are Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. Other sizable lakes are found in Central Asia.
Russia, especially the Urals and Siberia, is rich in industrial resources. It contains perhaps the world's largest iron-ore deposit, the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. The Urals contain almost every mineral but are short of coal. Coal is mined in the Pechora, Kuznetsk, and Kansk-Achinsk basins. Petroleum and natural gas are extracted in western Siberia and also in the Volga-Urals fields and the North Caucasus.
Because of its size Russia displays both monotony and diversity. As with its topography, its climates, vegetation, and soils span vast distances. The climates of both European and Asian Russia are continental except for the tundra and the extreme southeast. Great ranges of temperature are typical. In winter temperatures get colder both from south to north and from west to east. Summers can be quite hot and humid, even in Siberia. Russia also has low annual precipitation that almost everywhere averages less than 20 inches (51 centimeters) and peaks in summer usually in July or August. The continental interiors are the driest areas. From north to south the East European Plain is clad sequentially in tundra, coniferous forest (taiga), mixed forest, broadleaf forest, grassland (steppe), and semidesert (fringing the Caspian Sea) as the changes in vegetation reflect the changes in climate. Siberia supports a similar sequence but lacks the mixed forest. Most of Siberia is taiga. Soils vary from rich, black loams in the steppe to very acidic podzols in the taiga to bog types in the tundra and Siberian swamps.
With a population of more than 148.5 million in the early 1990s, Russia ranks sixth in the world after China, India, the United States, Brazil, and Indonesia. Of all the 15 former Soviet Union republics, Russia has the greatest ethnic diversity, with about 75 distinct nationalities. Russians make up about 82 percent of the total, and only three others (Tatars, Ukrainians, and Chuvash) constitute more than 1 percent each. Language groups include Indo-European, comprising Eastern Slavic and Iranian tongues; Altaic, including Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus; Uralic, including Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic; and Caucasian, comprising Abkhazo-Adyghian and Nakho-Dagestani. In addition, there are several Paleo-Asiatic groups in far eastern Siberia. As a whole, Russia's rate of population growth is well below that of previous decades, resulting primarily from a decline in the birthrate of the Russian majority. Rates among minority peoples continue to grow, particularly those with Muslim backgrounds. Migration from European Russia to Siberia and the Far East has resulted in regional variations.
By 1990 more than 74 percent of Russia's population was classified as urban. The largest numbers lived in the European section, where from 1960 to 1990 the rural population fell by nearly 30 percent. This resulted in about 160 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and 13 with more than 1 million each. Moscow and St. Petersburg are by far the largest, with more than 8 million and 5 million, respectively. Other concentrated urban areas include the banks of the Volga River, the Donets Coal Basin industrial zone, the mining and industrial centers of the Ural Mountains, the Kuznetsk Coal Basin east of the Urals, and a number of widely separated towns along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. There are isolated ports and mining centers in the far north, resort towns on the Black Sea, and the capitals of oblasts and other administrative centers. Most rural dwellers live in large villages associated with collective and state farms established during the Soviet era. These carry on the long-established Russian tradition of communal farming.
During the Soviet period, education was highly centralized, and indoctrination into Marxist-Leninist theory was a major element of schooling. The end of Communism led to extensive curriculum revision. Many preschool children attend creches, or nursery schools. They are not compulsory, and parents must contribute financially to them. Free, compulsory education begins when a child reaches the age of 7 and lasts for a minimum of eight years. More than 60 percent of students, however, attend for ten years. Minority children are taught in their own languages, but the study of Russian is required at the secondary level. Entry to higher education is selective and highly competitive. Most undergraduate courses require five years. Higher education is almost entirely in Russian, though a few institutions mostly in minority areas use the local language as well.
Russian, the language of the Great Russian people, is one of the three families of the Eastern Slavic branch of the Indo-European linguistic family. The roots of the Russian language are some 3,000 to 4,000 years old. As a result of the work on Old Church Slavonic begun by Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 800s, the Russians in AD 988 received Christianity in their own language. Russian thus was influenced strongly by Greek (by way of Byzantium) and the language of the Eastern Orthodox church. Russian was shaped by the 300-year occupation of the country by Mongol-Tatars. Through the years it was also influenced by Polish, German, French, Italian, and Latin. Since World War II it has borrowed many American terms. In turn Russian exerted its own influence on Old Church Slavonic and on other neighboring languages spoken in Russia. The earliest written texts, the Chronicles, originated in the 1100s in a mixture of original Russian and Old Church Slavonic. Peter the Great made his mark on the language by altering the Old Church Slavonic alphabet in the early 1700s. Peter's alphabet was further simplified in 1918 to form the current system of 33 letters.
The Russian language reflects a rich oral literary tradition, consisting of proverbs, folk tales, legends, and heroic ballads that may be traced to the earliest Eastern Slavic tribes. The Chronicles date from the time when Kiev was the cultural center of Russia, from 988 to 1240. From that time until the reign of Peter the Great in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, written literature was mainly the handmaiden of the Russian Orthodox church. The 1800s are recognized as the Golden Age of Russian literature, a time when it began to show a conscience, especially regarding serfdom and the downtrodden. The so-called "Russian Shakespeare," Aleksandr Pushkin, blended European and native Russian influences to perfection. "Russia's Byron," Mikhail Lermontov, is considered Russia's greatest Romanticist, and he was the first Russian poet to describe not only the beauty of the Caucasus Mountains but also Caucasian culture and folk art. Other great writers of the Golden Age include Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Goncharov, Ivan Turgenev, Fedor Dostoevski, Leo Tolstoi, Anton Chekhov, Maksim Gorki, and Aleksandr Blok. Anton Chekhov, Maksim Gorki, and the poet Aleksandr Blok wrote works that overlapped the 19th and 20th centuries. With them came another literary and artistic revival, designated sometimes as Russia's Silver Age. Soviet literature served the political regime. In 1932 Soviet writers were organized into the Union of Soviet Writers, which was guided by the Stalinist doctrine of socialist realism. Outstanding Russian writers of the Soviet period were Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Mayakovski, Mikhail Sholokhov, and the poets Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky. (See also Russian Literature.)
Like literature, Russian art was the servant of the Orthodox church until the reign of Peter the Great. Until then borrowings from the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, and Turko-Mongols were the basis for the rich background of folk art that entered the liturgical tradition by way of embroidery, metalwork, leatherwork, wood carving, and some bas-relief sculpture. Painting and sculpture. Sculpture did not play a role in Russian art until relatively recent times because the church forbade the display of the human body in three-dimensional form. This also explains why the figures in icons are so two-dimensional in appearance. A serious art, icon painting was brought to its zenith as a Russian art form in the 14th and 15th centuries by Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev. Until the late 1600s the icon and the mosaic were the Russian artist's sole outlet. Modern Westernized painting and sculpture date from Peter's reforms after 1700. Perhaps the most famous Russian artist in the last 200 years was Ilya Repin, who flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The stress on socialist realism in art as well as literature hampered artistic creativity from 1917. Modern art typically was banned and forced underground. In the 1980s, however, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev permitted public exhibits of Soviet modern art. Architecture. Byzantium also influenced Russian architecture, but Russian buildings from the outset had a higher, narrower silhouette than their Byzantine models. Russians experimented with the dome, which was derived from the nomadic yurt (felt tent). This led to the onion-shaped outer shell that is seen on most Russian domed churches. Early Russian architecture cannot be divided into periods like Gothic or baroque. Rather it sprang from different city centers: Kiev, Novgorod, Moscow, and later St. Petersburg. Soviet buildings were pragmatic products of standardized architecture, largely the result of the need to build quickly after the decimation of World War II. Some Stalinist "wedding-cake" architecture dots the streets of Moscow. Since the 1960s more innovative architectural styles have appeared around the country.
Ballet began as court entertainment in 1732, spreading to the wealthy estates in the middle of the century. Simultaneously, imperial ballet theaters and companies were created. In the 1800s the distinctive style of Russian ballet was strongly influenced by French, Italian, and Swedish choreographers and dancers, including Marius Petipa, considered the father of modern ballet. Only late in the century did the first Russian choreographers arise Lev Ivanov and Michel Fokine (see Fokine). The great Russian dancers asserted themselves at the same time Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky and truly Russian ballet reached a high technical and stylistic level. In 1909 the impresario Sergei Diaghilev founded the Ballets Russes and took Russian ballet to the capitals of Europe. (See also Diaghilev; Nijinsky; Pavlova.) Soviet ballet continued the 19th-century traditions. The Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and the Kirov in St. Petersburg remain famous throughout the world. (See also Ballet; Dance.) Theater originally was inspired by folk entertainment. Peasant companies performed for serfs and nobility alike, sometimes traveling from estate to estate. Later Russian theater was influenced by foreign models much like the ballet. The first Russian dramatists appeared in about 1750. Under Catherine the Great, herself an author of comedies, theater reached new highs, but most of the works were of foreign origin. Great Russian comedy came in the 1800s with the work of Aleksandr Griboedov ('Woe from Wit', 1833) and Nikolai Gogol ('The Inspector General', 1836). (See also Drama, "The Drama in Czarist Russia.") At the end of the century Konstantin Stanislavsky founded the Moscow Art Theatre, where Russian theater art came of age. Realistic plays produced there, among them the works of Chekhov and Gorki, stimulated the modern "method" school of acting (see Acting). Nonrealistic theater, called conditional theater by producer-director-actor Vsevolod Meyerhold, flourished through the early Soviet period. As in literature under Stalin, experimental theater was replaced by socialist realism. Not until the Gorbachev administration was the performance of controversial works permitted. Music. Because musical instruments were forbidden in Russian Orthodox church services, Russian music and consequently opera were delayed in development as an art form until more recent times. Typically, Russian choruses chanted and sang without accompaniment except for an occasional drumbeat. Secular vocal music did not develop until the 1800s. Since then Russian operas, symphonies, instrumental compositions, and art songs have flourished. Most are based on the melodic and rhythmic patterns of Russian folk music and nationalistic themes. The latter were particularly stressed during the Soviet period. The most ancient Russian folk instrument was a kind of zither, the gusli. Other traditional stringed instruments are the domra, gudok, and balalaika. The last, a triangular, three-stringed, short-necked instrument, was made popular in the 1800s in both city salons and in the countryside. Wind instruments include the flutelike dudka and suirel. Russian music came of age in 1836 with the performance of Mikhail Glinka's 'A Life for the Czar', later called 'Ivan Susanin'. Glinka also produced a musical fairy tale based on Pushkin's poem 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' (1842), but Glinka's operas contain many examples of Italian style. The Russian nationalist school was founded by Modest Musorgski with the production of the opera 'Boris Godunov' (1869). Musorgski was one of a group of Russian composers whom critics at the time called "the Five." The group included Mili Balakirev, Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov, Aleksandr Borodin, and Cesar Cui. Balakirev is noted for his classical renderings of Russian folk music. Rimski-Korsakov developed Orientalism to near perfection in his fairy-tale operas and in the brilliant symphonic suite 'Sheherazade'. Borodin also followed this pattern in his opera 'Prince Igor'. Cui composed miniature forms. (See also Musorgski; Rimski-Korsakov.) Not one of the Five, but the most famous of all Russian composers, is Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, composer of the well-known '1812 Overture', and many other works, including symphonies, symphonic poems, operas, ballets, concertos, and piano pieces. Distinctively Russian, Tchaikovsky's melancholic lyricism was perpetuated by the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, the last of the Russian romantic composers. (See also Rachmaninoff; Tchaikovsky.) Famous Russian composers of the 20th century were Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Miaskovsky, Nikolai Medtner, Aleksandr Scriabin, and Dimitri Shostakovich. Stravinsky, however, was a resident of France and the United States for most of his creative life. Prokofiev left Russia in 1918 after conducting the first performance of his well-known 'Classical Symphony'. He did not return permanently until 1932. Shostakovich composed 15 symphonies and two operas, some of which received severe criticism for not following the line of socialist realism. (See also Prokofiev; Shostakovich; Stravinsky; Music, Classical, "Russian Nationalists"; Music, Classical, "Music in the 20th Century.")
There are more than 1,100 museums in Russia, some of them world famous: the Central Lenin Museum, the Central Museum of the Revolution, the State Historical Museum, and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow; the Hermitage and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg; the museum-estate of Leo Tolstoi at Yasnaya Polyana, near Tula; and the A.S. Pushkin Museum in Mikhaylovka. In addition to the Moscow Art Theatre, world-renowned Russian theaters include the Bolshoi Theater of Opera and Ballet, the Maly Theater, the Vakhtangov Theater, and the State Central Puppet Theater in Moscow; the Kirov State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet and the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Dramatic Theater in St. Petersburg; and the Novosibirsk Theater of Opera and Ballet in Novosibirsk.
Russia is the leader among the former Soviet republics in book, newspaper, and journal publications. More than 50,000 books are published annually, the majority in Russian but many others in two dozen other languages. There are nearly 5,000 newspapers published in Russia, including several hundred in minority languages, and about 4,000 journals.
Because of its great size, its natural resources, and its political domination, the Russian Federation played a leading role in the economy of the Soviet Union. In the years preceding the dissolution of the union in 1991, the economy of Russia and the union as a whole was in decline. In 1992, immediately after the dissolution, the Russian government implemented a series of radical reforms. Price controls were abolished as the beginning of a transition from a centrally controlled economy to a market economy. An immediate series of sharp price increases caused extreme hardships for the Russian people.
Russia has by far the largest coal reserves among the former Soviet republics. It is also one of the world's leading producers of petroleum and natural gas. Extensive pipeline systems link producing districts to all parts of Russia and across the border to many European countries. Much of the country's fuel is converted to electricity, but about a third of the electricity is produced by hydroelectric plants. The largest of these are on the Volga, Kama, Ob', Yenisey, and Angara rivers. High-voltage transmission lines move large amounts of electricity from Siberia to the European part of the country.
The country's machine-building industry satisfies most of Russia's requirements for electric generators, steam boilers and turbines, grain combines, electric locomotives, and automobiles. It also fills much of its demand for machine tools, instruments, and automation components. Major automobile factories are in Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Yaroslavl', Ul'yanovsk, Izhevsk, and Togliatti. There is a heavy truck factory at Naberezhnye Chelny. Chemical industries originally developed in areas that use mineral salts, coke oven and smelter gases, timber, and food products. Rubber factories were built in areas of large-scale potato crops (north and south of Moscow); sulfuric acid plants where there was nonferrous metallurgy (east of the Urals); and fertilizer plants near deposits of potassium salts and phosphorites (the Urals and near the Belarus border). After the 1950s and the massive increase in the production of petroleum and natural gas provided new raw materials for the chemical industries. New plants were built both in the petroleum- and gas-producing areas in the Volga-Ural zone and the North Caucasus and in areas served by pipelines. Cellulose is produced in Siberia, where both timber and electricity are plentiful. The textile industry is concentrated in the central part of the European sector of the country. Cotton textiles dominate, with raw cotton coming from the Central Asian areas. Between the Volga and Oka rivers there are some 30 cotton-textile producing centers. Such durable consumer goods as home appliances and electronic equipment are manufactured mainly in areas with a tradition of skilled workers, notably in and around Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Because of the harshness of the Russian environment, less than one sixth of the land is dedicated to agriculture. About three fifths of the farmland is used for growing crops, with the remainder devoted to pasture. The grasslands have been converted to large collective and state farms, which produce mainly grains winter and spring wheat, barley, rye, oats, and buckwheat. Sweet corn (maize), rice, and grapes are grown in the North Caucasus. Elsewhere corn is raised strictly as livestock silage and fodder. Millet and melons are grown along the lower Volga River. Sunflowers are widespread. Beef cattle and pigs are raised in the grasslands as well. Sheep, horses, and goats are raised east of Moscow and in the North Caucasus. Dairying is combined with the growing of rye and oats in the mixed forest zones, western Siberia, and on the outskirts of cities, where vegetables are also cultivated. Potatoes and flax are grown northwest of Moscow. Apples, pears, and hemp are grown mainly south of the capital. Crops are irrigated along the lower Volga and in the North Caucasus. Forestry. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, which supply lumber, pulp and paper, and raw material for woodworking industries. Needle-leaf trees predominate, with the country producing more than a fifth of the world's softwood. Since World War II lumbering activities have spread increasingly to the east of the Urals. Fishing. With access to three of the world's oceans the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Russian fishing fleets are a major contributor to the economy. The chief fishing ports are Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea (which connects with the Atlantic), Murmansk and Archangel on the Barents Sea (Arctic), and Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan (Pacific). The inland Azov, Black, and Caspian seas have smaller-scale fishing, but reduced river flows and pollution are serious problems. Nevertheless, the Caspian is the source of what is considered the finest caviar in the world. There are also fisheries on inland lakes and rivers, including considerable fish farming.
Russia's great expanse and the resulting long distances between points especially between sources of raw materials and foodstuffs and the consuming areas for which they are intended require a major system of transportation. The railroad continues to dominate, hauling about half of the freight and one third of all the passengers. The rail system is densest in the central part of the European area and sparsest in Siberia and the Far East. East of the Urals it consists of only a few major trunk routes Trans-Siberian Railroad and Baikal-Amur Mainline with feeder branches to areas of economic significance. Other than highways that link major cities in the European section, the road system is underdeveloped. It carries less than 2 percent of the total freight, most of this for short distances to the nearest rail terminal. Inland waterways carry a much greater volume, most notably the Volga and its tributaries. The huge areas north of the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur rail lines in Siberia depend on river transport. Ports on the Arctic seaboard are linked by maritime transport, though only part of the year. With the aid of icebreakers, Murmansk remains open throughout the year, but Archangel is open for only 175 days and Nizhniye Kresty, at the mouth of the Kolyma River, for only 110. From Murmansk on the Barents Sea to Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan is a voyage of some 6,500 miles (10,460 kilometers). Airlines carry nearly 20 percent of all passengers, with Aeroflot, the world's largest airline, carrying more than 80 million passengers a year. Only a tiny percentage of Russia's freight is hauled by air. Air freight is confined chiefly to high-value items and haulage to and from remote parts of Siberia, where aircraft are sometimes the only means of transport.
In November 1917 the Bolsheviks first created the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Shortly afterward a declaration of peoples' rights permitted the formation of autonomous units within the federation. In 1922, with the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Russian Federation became a separate republic and, like the other union republics (which eventually numbered 15), was subject to the various constitutions of 1918, 1924, 1936, and 1977. Until the late 1980s the structure of all Soviet government, including that of the individual republics, was dominated at all levels by the Communist party. After the failed coup of August 1991, the Communist party was stripped of its power and all of its property was confiscated. Multinational Russia includes 24 minority republics, four autonomous oblasts (provinces), four autonomous okrugs (districts), six krays (regions), and 49 oblasts. The people are governed by a parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies. In 1991 the new post of president was created to head the executive branch and to be elected by popular vote. In elections held in June of that year Boris Yeltsin became the first democratically elected leader of the republic. He outlined a plan to give greater political and economic authority to the federation and to diminish the role of the central government. Yeltsin's defiance of the coup that briefly deposed Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August inspired a popular uprising that led to the unraveling of the old central controls. The Soviet Union officially disbanded in December 1991, Russia became an independent state officially known as the Russian Federation, and it joined with ten of the other former Soviet republics to form the new Commonwealth of Independent States. (See also Independent States, Commonwealth of; Yeltsin, Boris.) Courts. The highest judicial body in the Russian Federation during the Soviet period was the Supreme Court. It supervised the activities of all other judicial bodies. Court proceedings in Russia are carried on either in Russian or in the language of the prevailing nationality. Constitutional justice in the court is based on the equality of all citizens. Judges are independent and subject only to the law. Trials are to be open, and the accused is guaranteed a defense.
Russia has been inhabited for at least 4,000 years. Waves of nomadic invasions occurred until the 13th century. Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Avars, Khazars, Turks, Magyars, and other invaders marauded the steppes and influenced Slavic culture, including that of the Russians. (See also Goths; Huns.)
Slavic origins are obscure. They evidently diffused from their homeland north of the Carpathian Mountains at the beginning of the Christian era. Some tribes moved eastward into the areas now called Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. There they met Finnic tribes, whom they pushed farther north. By the 3rd and 4th centuries the steppes and forests of the region south and west of contemporary Moscow were home to various eastern Slavs. By AD 600 Slavic trading villages were on all the rivers west of the Ural Mountains. Slavic ethnic distinction probably crystallized during a period of prolonged peace brought about by the domination of the Volga trade route by the Khazars. This era is known as the Pax Khazarica and lasted from 720 to 860. Lively commerce was carried on between Scandinavia and Baghdad by way of the Volga, and the Khazars kept the route safe from marauding nomads. In time the Khazar dominion stretched as far west as the Dnepr River, the focus of Slavic culture in the Antes Confederation.
Long before the rise of the first Slavic state Kievan Rus during the late 800s, southern Russia was occupied by Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, Turkic Bulgars, Avars, and Khazars. The Slavs endured them all. Loosely knit and socially bound mainly by extended families, the Slavs seemed to be interested only in farming and welcomed the protection they received from powerful warriors like the Khazars. During the Pax Khazarica, Scandinavians traded not only with Baghdad but also with Byzantium by way of the Dnepr. These Norsemen, or Varangians, as the Slavs called them, traveled inland over lakes and rivers, hauling their boats overland from one body of water to the next. At Novgorod they portaged to the Dnepr watershed, which led them to the Black Sea. Near Kiev the Dnepr bends eastward and is plagued by rapids, forcing the Varangians to make another portage at Kiev. In the 800s the Slavs were in complete turmoil. They had great respect for the Varangians, and the people of Novgorod asked the Norsemen for a ruler to organize them. The Scandinavians sent Rurik, chieftain of the Rus trading company, in 862 the year from which the Russians date their first dynasty. Shortly after Rurik's death his relative Oleg became grand duke of Novgorod and soon added Kiev to his domains, making it his capital. During the next century the influence of Kiev was felt from the Danube to the Volga.
In 988 Vladimir, grand prince of Kiev, became a Christian in the Byzantine, or Eastern Orthodox, tradition. Greek missionaries moved into Russia, bringing their religion and art and architecture. The missionaries also developed the Cyrillic alphabet. For the next four centuries Kievan Rus developed into a well-organized, democratic, urban, commercial society. At the height of its glory in the 11th century, Kievan Rus was populated by 7 to 8 million people and included the cities of Kiev, Novgorod, and Smolensk. It was the largest and most populous state in Europe. In the 12th century Kievan Rus began to decay because of a fragmented power structure and the inability to ward off attacks from steppe nomads. Moreover, the Volga River trade route began to experience a rebirth. A new trading center grew at Moscow. Between 1237 and 1240 Kievan Rus was finally crushed by the onslaught of the Mongols, who were also known as Tatars. The Mongols were under the leadership of Batu, grandson of Genghis Khan. The once-flourishing populace either perished or fled into the neighboring forests.
The Mongols formed a kingdom with a capital at Sarai on a tributary of the Volga River. The influence of the so-called "Golden Horde" was felt almost everywhere in Russia. They did not attempt to settle the land but exacted tribute through Russian intermediaries. Asian customs and ways of thought became a part of Russian culture, but as long as they paid tribute the Russians were free to practice their religion and native customs. The Golden Horde soon split into three separate Tatar hordes focused on Kazan', Astrakhan', and the Crimea. Although they controlled the Moscow area, they never gained control of Novgorod. During the Mongol yoke Novgorod joined the European trading consortium, the Hanseatic League, and flourished. In time the Tatars began to weaken because of war and internal discord. The principality of Muscovy (Moscow), nestled deep in the forest at the hub of all the major trade routes, developed at the expense of the Tatars as their power declined. Muscovite princes, who efficiently collected the tribute demanded by the Tatar Khans, enhanced their coffers through reward and fraud. As descendants of the Rurik line, Muscovite princes came to be looked upon by the people as justified leaders of all Russians. From the beginning of his reign, Ivan the Great (1462-1505) refused to pay tribute to the Tatars. In 1480 the Tatars sent an army against him, but the army withdrew without a battle. Ivan added Novgorod to his domains and spread Muscovy's rule to the Arctic. Being free of serious Tatar threats was fortunate for Ivan, because after 1480 he was often faced with rebellion by family members and war with neighboring Lithuania. (See also Ivan.)
Ivan IV, called "the Terrible" because of his savage cruelty, crowned himself czar the Russian word for Caesar and ruled Muscovy from 1533 to 1584. Russian sovereigns now ruled "by the grace of God" as absolute monarchs, responsible to the Almighty alone. Ivan defeated the Khanates of Kazan' in 1552 and Astrakhan' in 1556, making the Volga a wholly Russian river. In the 1580s he spread Muscovy's rule into Siberia, but westward expansion was blocked. Ivan futilely engaged the Swedes, and Kiev still lay deep within the powerful Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. Ivan IV killed one of his sons, and another died at age 9. The remaining son, Fedor, was feeble, and, after reigning as czar for 14 years, he died childless. Thus ended the House of Rurik. Boris Godunov was elected in 1598 to succeed Fedor. He consolidated Russia's territorial gains, but, soon after he came to power, drought, famine, and plague killed a half million people in Muscovy. Peasants fled their villages, leaving their holdings in weeds. In response Godunov decreed that the peasants were forbidden to leave the estates on which they were born. The peasants were thus bound to the soil, and serfdom began in Russia. Godunov died in 1605. His successor was murdered within a few months. Leaderless Russia was rife with dissension. For the next eight years it coped with civil wars, Cossack raids in the south, Polish invaders, and impostors pretending to be sons of Ivan IV and trying to claim the throne. The frustrated Russians in 1610 temporarily accepted the son of the Polish king as czar, but Russian guerrilla forces later ousted the foreigners.
The Russian nobility sought a new bloodline for the aristocracy. They found it in Mikhail Romanov, who was a young nobleman, or boyar. Thus began the Romanov Dynasty, which ruled until 1917. (See also Romanov Dynasty.) Peter and Catherine the Great. The Russian Empire is usually dated from the reign of Peter the Great from 1689 to 1725 and with it the beginning of modern Russian history. Peter defeated the Swedes and gained an outlet to the Baltic Sea. He founded a navy, introduced factories, reformed the administrative machinery, and organized a modern army. He forced education upon his officers and members of his court, many of whom could not read. He created a new Russian capital St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. (See also Peter the Great.) Peter died in 1725. His work survived almost half a century of incompetent rulers. Then Catherine the Great came to the throne in 1762. She again took up the task of reform. Her armies defeated the Crimean Tatars in 1792. (See also Catherine the Great.) Alexander I and Nicholas I. The reign of Alexander I from 1801 to 1825 began in the spirit of Peter and Catherine, both of whom were Westernizers. Plans were drawn for a Duma, or representative assembly, to propose new laws. Alexander had begun to carry out his program when Russia became involved in the Napoleonic wars. Reform was then abandoned. (See also Alexander.) Alexander's successor, Nicholas I, ruled from 1825 to 1855 and devoted his attention to protecting Russia against what he considered corrupting Western ideas. All democratic reform was suppressed. In 1854 Russia became involved in the disastrous Crimean War, which lasted more than two years. The Russian people were tired of war, and the serfs rose against the landowners and burned and pillaged their estates. (See also Crimean War; Nicholas.) Emancipation of the serfs (1861). Alexander II succeeded Nicholas I in 1855. He was the greatest czarist reformer in Russian history. His reforms began with the emancipation of the serfs in March 1861, giving liberty to some 40 million people. The long years of tyranny and lack of progress, however, had produced discontent, especially among the young with university educations. Revolutionary activity, which had been brewing since an unsuccessful revolt against the czar in December 1825, developed rapidly, and in 1881 Alexander II was assassinated by a bomb hurled at his carriage. He was succeeded by his son Alexander III, a Slavophile and no friend of reformers. Under Alexander III revolutionary organizations were completely suppressed. (See also Alexander.) First Duma. Nicholas II was the last of the Romanovs and came to power in 1894. In 1904 Russia and Japan went to war in the Far East. The war was unpopular in Russia, and the country suffered a terrible defeat, encouraging greater revolutionary activity. (See also Russo-Japanese War.) Although small, a new factory laboring class was organized by the revolutionaries. Peasants sympathized and helped. Mutinies broke out in the army and navy. Manufacturers and landlords demanded reforms that would satisfy workers, peasants, and soldiers. After a general strike, climaxing the Revolution of 1905, Nicholas called for the election of a Duma as proposed by his ancestor Alexander I a century before. In August 1914 Russia went to war against Germany and Austria over conflicting claims in the Balkans. The peasants and workers at first accepted the war without protest, but great military failures resulted because of the Russian government's inability to supply and equip its armies. Millions of Russian lives were sacrificed. The attitude of the public toward the war and the government changed. Food shortages in March 1917 stimulated mass rioting in the capital of Petrograd. Soldiers deserted the government and joined the people. The Duma demanded that the czar step down. Nicholas II abdicated his throne on March 15, and he and his family were exiled and later executed. (See also Nicholas; World War I.)
Russia was in turmoil until the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin, officially established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Dec. 30, 1922 (see Russian Revolution). The Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic dominated the Soviet Union for its entire 74-year history. The Russian Federation was by far the largest of the republics; Moscow, its capital, was also the capital of the Soviet Union. In 1991 the Soviet Union disintegrated. Boris Yeltsin was elected president of Russia. As economic conditions worsened, he was opposed by hard-line former Communists who controlled the parliament. He dissolved the parliament on Sept. 21, 1993, and set new parliamentary elections for December. When the legislators rose up in armed rebellion, Yeltsin used the army to remove them from office on October 4. He then assumed control of the government. (For a detailed history of the Soviet periods, see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.)
Official Name. Russian Federation. Capital. Moscow. NATURAL FEATURES Natural Regions. East European Plain, West Siberian Plain, Central Siberian Plateau. Major Ranges. Altai, Carpathians, Caucasus, Cherskiy, Kolyma, Pamir, Sayan, Stanovoy, Tian Shan, Ural, Yablonovyy. Highest Peak. El'brus, 18,481 feet (5,633 meters). Major Rivers. Amur, Angara, Irtysh, Lena, Ob', Volga, Yenisey. Major Lakes. Baikal, Caspian Sea, Ladoga, Onega. Climate. Diversified tundra (along Arctic coast), long, bitter winters and short summers; taiga (north-central half of country), long, severe winters and short springs and summers; steppe (European Russia), cold winters and hot, dry summers; subtropical (Black Sea coast), heavy annual rainfall. PEOPLE Population (1992 estimate). 148,704,000; 22.6 persons per square mile (8.7 persons per square kilometer); 74 percent urban, 26 percent rural. Major Religions. Atheism and no religion, Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism. Major Languages. Russian, Ukrainian. Literacy. About 99 percent of population. Major Cities (1992 estimate) Moscow (8,747,000). Capital of nation; industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and educational center (see Moscow, Russia). St. Petersburg (4,437,000). Major seaport, on Neva River; cultural, educational, and industrial center (see St. Petersburg, Russia). Novosibirsk (1,442,000). Administrative center of Novosibirsk province; industrial, educational, and scientific center; Akademgorodok science center (see Novosibirsk, Russia). Nizhni Novgorod (1,441,000). Manufacturing and educational center; fortress and cathedral (see Nizhni Novgorod, Russia). Ekaterinburg (1,371,000). Administrative, transportation, educational, and industrial center (see Ekaterinburg, Russia). Samara (1,239,000). Administrative, transportation, educational, and industrial center on Volga River (see Samara, Russia). Leading Universities. Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, Gorky State University.
Form of Government. Federal republic. Chief of State and Head of Government. President. Legislature. Congress of People's Deputies, with 845 members. Voting Qualification. Age 18. Political Divisions. 20 minority republics, 1 autonomous oblast, 10 autonomous okrugs, 6 krays, and 49 oblasts.
Chief Agricultural Products. Crops sugar beets, wheat, potatoes, barley, rye, oats, corn (maize), grapes, cabbage, seed cotton, dry peas, tomatoes, sunflowers. Livestock and fish sheep and goats, cattle, pigs, horses, poultry, freshwater fish and seafood. Chief Mined Products. Coal, petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, phosphate rock, salt, potash, bauxite, chromite, manganese, asbestos, magnesite, zinc, copper, lead, nickel, molybdenum. Chief Manufactured Products. Petroleum products, iron and steel, cement, mineral fertilizers, chemicals, food products, wood products, machine tools, food processing equipment, chemical equipment, petroleum equipment. Monetary Unit. 1 ruble = 100 kopecks.
Bolshoi Theater of Opera and Ballet. In Moscow; internationally renowned company, founded 1776. Gorky Park of Culture and Leisure. In Moscow; largest of city parks, located on Moskva River; lawns, flowers, fun fair. Great Palace of Peter the Great. Near St. Petersburg, in Petrodvorets; built 1714-28, reconstructed in mid-1700s. Hermitage. In St. Petersburg; world renowned art museum, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great as a court museum. Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater. In St. Petersburg. Kremlin. In Moscow; center of city, on bank of Moskva River; built in 12th century as fort; largest concentration of historic buildings in Russia (see Kremlin). Lake Baikal. Near Irkutsk; world's largest lake, by volume; 390 miles (630 kilometers) long (see Baikal, Lake). Peter and Paul Fortress. In St. Petersburg; city's first structure, founded in 1703; Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. Red Square. In Moscow; center for political events; originally a marketplace; St. Basil's Cathedral; nearby are Kremlin, Lenin Mausoleum, state historical museum (see Moscow, Russia).
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