Some information about Russia
Russia (The Russian Federation), is the
largest country in the world, extending from the Baltic Sea in
the west to the Pacific Ocean in the East, and occupying more
than half of the Eurasian landmass. From 1922 to 1991, Russia was
the main constituent republic in the UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST
REPUBLICS; before that it was the principal component of a
historic monarchical state, the Russian Empire. Russia is bounded on the west by
Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine; on the
south by the Black Sea, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Mongolia, and China; on the east by the Pacific Ocean, and on the
north by the Arctic Ocean. The area west of the URAL MOUNTAINS is
called European Russia; the Asian part of the country, east of
the Urals, is called SIBERIA. Russia's capital city is MOSCOW.
LAND AND RESOURCES
The second area, the West Siberian Lowland, is swampy and forested but has many features in common with European Russia. Because the Russian platform rose and fell many times during its geological history, the expansion and contraction of shallow seas produced vast sedimentary deposits. Other deposits occurred during the Ice Age, when ice covered the northwest and central portions of the East European Plain, as well as the northern portion of the West Siberian Lowland.
The third area, the Highlands of Eastern Siberia, includes the Central Siberian Uplands (between the Yenisei and LENA rivers), as well as many small mountain ranges, such as the Verkhoyansk and the STANOVOI RANGE. The KAMCHATKA PENINSULA and SAKHALIN island, at the western edge of the Pacific, were formed from young mountains. The Kamchatka mountain ranges contain active volcanoes.
DRINAGE
The major rivers of European Russia are the
VOLGA (the longest river in Europe) and the DON, which flow
southward to the Caspian and Black Sea, respectively. Other
rivers include the Onega, the Northern DVINA, and the PECHORA,
all of which flow north into the Arctic Ocean. The Moscow River,
which flows through the nation's capital, is a tributary of the
Oka, which empties into the Volga. The NEVA RIVER flows from Lake
Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland at Saint Petersburg.
The OB, the IRTYSH, and the Yenisei rivers of western Siberia flow north to the Arctic Ocean, as do the Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma of East Siberia. Along the Manchurian border is the AMUR, which flows into the Tatar Strait, opposite Sakhalin Island. Virtually all of the important rivers of Siberia, and many others, rise in the uplands bordering Mongolia.
The Yenisei-Selenga and the
Ob-Irtysh systems, each about 5,600 km (3,500 mi) in length, are
among the longest in the world, exceeded in length only by the
Amazon, the Nile, and the Yangtze. Siberian rivers freeze in the
winter and can then be used as a form of overland transportation.
In the spring, when the upper portions of the rivers thaw and the
lower portions remain encased in ice, great floods occur,
creating swampy conditions in the surrounding regions.
Perhaps the most notable geological feature of Siberia is Lake BAIKAL. Located near the Mongolian border, it is the deepest freshwater lake in the world. Indeed, the lake is so deep and has such a large surface area that it holds fully one-fifth of the world's supply of fresh water. It is also the habitat of an astonishing variety of fish and other forms of life, many of which are unique.
CLIMATE
Russia's climate is mostly of the continental type, with wide variations in average temperatures between summer and winter, short autumn and spring seasons, low levels of precipitation (most of which occurs in the summer), and little moderating influence from any ocean. The gap between summer and winter average temperatures, substantial everywhere in the country, increases markedly from west to east. Along Russia's western frontiers, it is approximately 21 degrees C (70 degrees F); in the Urals, it is 35 degrees C (95 degrees F); and in eastern Siberia it reaches an astonishing level of 65 degrees C (150 degrees F). The Verkhoyansk area, east of the Lena River, reports the world's coldest temperatures virtually every year; they average about - 51 degrees C ( - 60 degrees F) and sometimes fall to - 68 degrees C ( - 90 degrees F).
Siberia's extraordinarily cold temperatures are a product of two factors. First, the area is completely open to the cold Arctic Ocean in the north. Second, it receives little or no warm air from the Indian Ocean to the south, because the Himalayan Mountains and the Mongolian plateau effectively bar the movement of warm air into the area.
VEGETATION AND ANIMAL LIFE
From the standpoint of plant
life, the Russian landmass can be divided into three strips,
roughly parallel to one another and running west to east. The
northernmost layer--north of the Arctic Circle--is known as the
TUNDRA. It consists of permafrost, and its vegetation is limited
to grass, moss, and lichens. The second band consists of thick
forests. 
The northernmost section of the forest region
is known as the TAIGA and is made up chiefly of pine, spruce, and
other conifers. This is, in fact, the largest coniferous forest
in the world, although it also contains large stands of deciduous
trees. The southernmost part of this central band is the wooded
steppe, a transitional region separating the forests from the
grasslands farther south. The third band is the STEPPE, an
immense grassland plain stretching from Hungary to Mongolia.
Because of
the immense size of the country and its extraordinary range of
environmental conditions, Russia contains a great variety of
animal life. The northern regions have polar bears, seals,
musk-oxen, and reindeer; the taiga has elk and many types of
small fur-bearing animals, such as ermine, sable, and marten.
Farther south, in the mixed forest zone, are wolves, foxes,
beavers, otters, deer, and squirrels, as well as a smaller number
of brown bears and badgers.Siberian tigers are a protected
species in the Maritime Territory on the Pacific coast. Because
they have been cultivated so extensively, the steppe lands do not
have much wildlife beyond moles, squirrels, and various species
of birds.
RESOURCES
In terms of natural resources Russia may well be the richest country in the world. Petroleum, natural gas, precious metals, and other valuable minerals abound. Coal is found in both the European and the Siberian parts of the country. In Europe the principal coalfields are located in the Moscow and Vorkuta basins and the Russian part of the DONETS BASIN. The largest Siberian fields are the KUZNETSK BASIN (along the upper Tom River), the Tunguska Basin (along the lower Yenisei), and much of southern YAKUTIA. The Kuznetsk and Tunguska coalfields are among the largest in the world.
The main petroleum-producing areas in European Russia are in the Urals, the Komi region in the north, and the North Caucasus. Western Siberia's Tyumen Province has rich reserves. Efforts to extract the large quantities of oil known to exist in more northerly sections of Siberia have been severely hampered by the lack of transportation, the inhospitable climate, and inadequate technology (especially drilling equipment capable of penetrating beneath the permafrost). Although large oil deposits evidently lie off the Pacific coast near Kamchatka and Sakhalin, Russian attempts to locate and exploit these offshore fields have been impeded by the same kinds of problems. A U.S.-Japanese consortium was given the right to drill for oil off Sakhalin Island in 1992.
Russia also possesses immense reserves of iron ore (particularly in the Kursk region of European Russia), as well as gold, silver, platinum, lead, molybdenum, manganese, tungsten, apatite, nickel, titanium, and cobalt. Most of these minerals--like the country's oil and natural gas fields--are located in remote, sparsely populated areas in the eastern part of the country, while three-fourths of the population and four- fifths of all industry are located west of the Urals. This fact has hampered efforts to exploit Russia's mineral wealth.
PEOPLE
The Russian people, who form the vast majority of the population, trace their origins to the medieval Slavic state of Kievan Rus'. This state occupied portions of what are now Ukraine, Belarus, and European Russia from the 9th to the 13th century, when it was destroyed by the Mongol invasion. In the 14th century a new Russian state emerged, centered around Moscow, and known in the early part of its history as Muscovy. The Muscovite state gradually extended its control over European Russia, and, beginning in the 16th century, into Siberia as well, thus forming the basis for the Russian Empire that emerged as a major power in the 18th century.
Muscovy, like Kievan Rus' before it, was a stronghold of the ORTHODOX CHURCH; it had historic ties to the Christian nations of Western Europe but developed separately from them. Its early history was marked by rivalry and frequent conflicts with its nearest western neighbors, the Poles and the Baltic Germans, which left a legacy of suspicion and mistrust. Impressed by the achievements of the West, the Russian tsar PETER I (Peter the Great) began a vigorous program of Westernization in the early 18th century. Russia became part of the European world, and its educated classes adopted European culture. Nevertheless, the Russians, conscious of their unique history, continued to feel a sense of separateness from Europe and uneasiness about their own national identity.
Approximately 81.5 percent of Russia's population are ethnic Russians, and another 2.9 percent are Ukrainian. Belorussians, the third main Slavic group, are far less numerous, comprising less than 0.8 percent of the country's population. These three peoples are concentrated in European Russia and, to a lesser degree, in southern Siberia and the Far East. Almost all speak Russian, even if Ukrainian or Belorussian is their first language.
The second-largest ethnic group (after the Slavs) are peoples of Turkic stock. The most numerous of these are the TATAR (3.8 percent of the country's population) and the Chuvash (1.2 percent), who live along the Volga River in European Russia. Also included among the Turkic group are such Siberian peoples as the Yakuts (0.2 percent), the Tuvinians (0.1 percent), the Khakass (0.05 percent), and the Altai (0.04 percent).
The third-largest group is the Finno-Ugric, most of whom live along the Finnish border, or in the Volga or Urals areas. These peoples include the Mordvinians (0.8 percent), the Udmurts (0.5 percent), the Mari (0.4 percent), the Komi (0.2 percent), and the Karelians, who form 11 percent of the population of KARELIA. Another group of Finno-Ugric peoples lives in northern Siberia: these are the Nentsy and the KHANT AND MANSI.
Other ethnic groups with sizable populations include the Bashkirs (approximately 1.5 million) and the Germans (more than 700,000). The number of Jews, once quite high, has fallen dramatically, and their numbers continue to be depleted through emigration, primarily to Israel and the United States. Approximately 500,000 Jews remain in Russia today.
Many of the non-Russian groups have their own homelands within the Russian Federation. The most important are the 21 autonomous republics and regions--Adygei, Bashkiria, Buryatia, CHECHNYA, Chuvashia, DAGHESTAN, Gorno-Altai, the Jewish region, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karachevo-Cherkess, Karelia, Khakassia, Komi, Mari, Mordvinia, North Ossetia, Tatarstan, TUVA, Udmurtia, and YAKUTIA.
LANGUAGE POLICY
Members of each nationality group in Russia--there are approximately 100 in all--regard the language of their nationality as their primary language. Thus, virtually all Russians use Russian as their principal mode of communication; 85.9 percent of Tatars regard Tatar as their first language, 91.7 percent of all Chuvash regard Chuvash as their primary language, and 67.2 percent of Bashkirs rely primarily on Bashkir in their daily lives. During the Soviet period the government's message to its multiethnic population was that the Russians were the "elder brothers" of the other Soviet nationalities, and Russian language courses were a requirement for all schoolchildren.
This policy achieved its greatest success among the other Slavic groups (Ukrainians and Belorussians), whose languages most closely resemble Russian, as well as among Jews. Other ethnic groups, particularly those living in Central Asia and northern Siberia, tended to use Russian much less.
RELIGION
Presenting
even the most basic information on religion entails especially
difficult problems, for the Soviet regime spent decades
trying--through a combination of terror, coercion, and
propaganda--to eliminate all forms of religious belief and
behavior. Even now, comprehensive church records are lacking
(most churches were destroyed or given over to secular use during
the Communist era), and attempts to obtain data through survey
research often collide with the fears and secretiveness people
developed after 1917. Perhaps the most reliable data emerged from
a poll conducted in September 1991, which found that 41 percent
of the ethnic Russians in the USSR, the overwhelming majority of
whom lived in Russia itself, consider themselves Russian Orthodox
believers.
Attempts to count the Muslims, who are the second most numerous religious group in the Russian Federation, also involve complications. In addition to the two factors mentioned above is the difficulty of defining the term Muslim, which combines elements of religious and ethnic self-identification. If all the Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechen, and other people of traditionally Muslim stock are included, the total comes to almost 12 million, or about 8 percent of the country's population. While most of these people probably are religious believers, many are also agnostics and atheists, especially among the young people of the traditionally Muslim areas.
DEMOGRAPHY
Since the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia has been transformed from a predominantly agrarian society to one that is chiefly urban. Since it is primarily the younger generation that migrates to the city, rural areas are populated largely by elderly people. Urban centers, which have a far more youthful population, have grown rapidly. Today, the major cities, in order of population, are: Moscow, SAINT PETERSBURG (Leningrad), NIZHNY NOVGOROD (Gorky), NOVOSIBIRSK, YEKATERINBURG (Sverdlovsk), SAMARA (Kuibyshev), and CHELYABINSK.
CULTURE
Russian culture is currently in turmoil, a circumstance that reflects the rapidly changing (and steadily deteriorating) conditions affecting politics, economics, and society in general. Many of the most prominent Russian writers, composers, artists, and various kinds of performers have emigrated in recent years. Some sought artistic freedom in the West, others were escaping religious oppression, and still others were looking for an opportunity to earn more money. The result has been a gradual impoverishment of Russian culture, one of the fields of which the government and ordinary citizens had been justifiably proud.
