Russia
,
country
that 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 the
Soviet 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 11
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.
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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, Furst (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
Maxim 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:
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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
.
Land
Russia is bounded to the north and east by the Arctic and Pacific oceans, and it has small frontages in the northwest on the
Baltic Sea
at
St. Petersburg
and at the detached Russian
oblast
(region) of
Kaliningrad
(a part of what was once
East Prussia
annexed
in 1945), which also abuts
Poland
and
Lithuania
. To the south Russia borders
North Korea
,
China
,
Mongolia
, and
Kazakhstan
,
Azerbaijan
, and
Georgia
. To the southwest and west it borders
Ukraine
,
Belarus
,
Latvia
, and
Estonia
, as well as
Finland
and
Norway
.
Extending nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere and covering much of eastern and northeastern
Europe
and all of northern
Asia
, Russia has a maximum east-west extent of some 5,600 miles (9,000 km) and a north-south width of 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,500 to 4,000 km). There is an enormous variety of landforms and landscapes, which occur mainly in a series of broad latitudinal belts. Arctic deserts lie in the extreme north, giving way southward to the tundra and then to the forest zones, which cover about half of the country and give it much of its character. South of the forest zone lie the wooded
steppe
and the steppe, beyond which are small sections of semidesert along the northern shore of the
Caspian Sea
. Much of Russia lies at latitudes where the winter cold is intense and where evaporation can barely keep
pace
with the accumulation of moisture, engendering abundant rivers, lakes, and swamps.
Permafrost
covers some 4 million square miles (10 million square km)?an area seven times larger than the
drainage basin
of the
Volga River
, Europe’s longest river?making settlement and road building difficult in vast areas. In the European areas of Russia, the permafrost occurs in the tundra and the forest-tundra zone. In western Siberia permafrost occurs along the
Yenisey River
, and it covers almost all areas east of the river, except for south
Kamchatka
province,
Sakhalin Island
, and
Primorsky Kray
(the Maritime Region).
Relief
On the basis of geologic structure and relief, Russia can be divided into two main parts?western and eastern?roughly along the line of the Yenisey River. In the western section, which occupies some two-fifths of Russia’s total area, lowland plains predominate over
vast
areas broken only by low hills and plateaus. In the eastern section the bulk of the terrain is mountainous, although there are some extensive lowlands. Given these topological factors, Russia may be subdivided into six main relief regions: the
Kola-Karelian region
, the
Russian Plain
, the
Ural Mountains
, the
West Siberian Plain
, the
Central Siberian Plateau
, and the
mountains of the south and east
.
Kola-Karelia
, the smallest of Russia’s relief regions, lies in the northwestern part of European Russia between the Finnish border and the
White Sea
.
Karelia
is a low, ice-scraped plateau with a maximum elevation of 1,896 feet (578 metres), but for the most part it is below 650 feet (200 metres); low ridges and knolls
alternate
with lake- and marsh-filled hollows. The
Kola Peninsula
is similar, but the small
Khibiny mountain
range rises to nearly 4,000 feet (1,200 metres). Mineral-rich ancient rocks lie at or near the surface in many places.
Western Russia makes up the largest part of one of the great lowland areas of the world, the
Russian Plain
(also called the East European Plain), which extends into Russia from the western border eastward for 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the Ural Mountains and from the
Arctic Ocean
more than 1,500 miles (2,400 km) to the
Caucasus
Mountains and the
Caspian Sea
. About half of this vast area lies at elevations of less than 650 feet (200 metres) above
sea level
, and the highest point (in the
Valdai Hills
, northwest of
Moscow
) reaches only 1,125 feet (343 metres). Nevertheless, the detailed
topography
is quite varied. North of the
latitude
on which Moscow lies, features characteristic of lowland glacial
deposition
predominate, and morainic ridges, of which the most pronounced are the Valdai Hills and the
Smolensk Upland
, which rises to 1,050 feet (320 metres), stand out above low, poorly drained hollows interspersed with lakes and marshes. South of Moscow there is a west-east alternation of rolling plateaus and extensive plains. In the west the
Central Russian Upland
, with a maximum elevation of 950 feet (290 metres), separates the lowlands of the upper
Dnieper River
valley from those of the
Oka
and
Don
rivers, beyond which the
Volga Hills rise gently to 1,230 feet (375 metres) before
descending
abruptly to the
Volga River
. Small river valleys are sharply incised into these uplands, whereas the major rivers cross the lowlands in broad, shallow floodplains. East of the Volga is the large
Caspian Depression
, parts of which lie more than 90 feet (25 metres) below sea level. The Russian Plain also extends southward through the Azov-Caspian isthmus (in the North
Caucasus
region) to the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, the crest line of which forms the boundary between Russia and the Transcaucasian states of Georgia and Azerbaijan; just inside this border is
Mount Elbrus
, which at 18,510 feet (5,642 metres) is the highest point in Russia. The large
Kuban and
Kuma plains of the North Caucasus are separated by the
Stavropol Upland
at elevations of 1,000 to 2,000 feet (300 to 600 metres).