The Russian federation， is called Russia or R Is in the world the area biggest country， the region surmounts the Europe and Asia two continents， borders on with many Is continuous the coastline has extended from Arctic Ocean to North Pacific Ocean， but also has included inland sea Black Sea and the Caspian S As former Soviet Union's main Union Republic， the Russian federation is ten points has the influence great nation， specially in is composed of 10 former Soviet Union Union Republic in Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991， Soviet Union disintegrated， Russia inherited Soviet Union， became the United Nations Security Council permanent member， had the veto to the Security Council 中文对照：俄罗斯联邦，简称俄罗斯或俄国。是世界上面积最大的国家，地域跨越欧亚两个大洲，与多个国家接壤。绵延的海岸线从北冰洋一直伸展到北太平洋，还包括了内陆海黑海和里海。作为前苏联的主要加盟共和国，俄罗斯联邦是一个十分有影响力的大国，特别是在由10个前苏联加盟共和国组成的独联体组织内。1991年，苏联解体，俄罗斯继承苏联，成为联合国安全理事会常任理事国，对安理会议案拥有否决权。
Russia (Russian: Росси́я， Rossiya; pronounced [rʌ'sʲjə])， also[1] the Russian Federation (Russian: Росси́йская Федера́ция， Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; pronounced [rʌ'sʲskəjə fʲɪdʲɪ'ʦɪjə]， listen (help·info))， is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of E With an area of 17，075，400 square kilometres， it is the largest country in the world by land mass， covering almost twice the territory of the next-largest country， C It has the world's eighth largest Russia shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from NW to SE): Norway， Finland， Estonia， Latvia， Lithuania， Poland， Belarus， Ukraine， Georgia， Azerbaijan， Kazakhstan， China， Mongolia， and North K It is also close to the United States and Japan across relatively small stretches of Formerly the dominant republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)， Russia is now an independent country and an influential member of the Commonwealth of Independent States， since the Union's dissolution in December During the Soviet era， Russia was officially called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) Russia is considered the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic Most of the area， population， and industrial production of the Soviet Union， then one of the world's two superpowers， lay in R After the breakup of the Soviet Union， Russia's global role was greatly diminished compared to that of the former Soviet U In October 2005， the federal statistics agency reported that Russia's population has shrunk by more than half a million people dipping to 143 million， although Russia became the second country in the world by the number of immigrants from [2]Ancient RusPrior to the Christian Era， the vast lands of Southern Russia were home to un-united tribes， such as Proto-Indo-Europeans and S Between the third and sixth centuries Common Era， the steppes were overwhelmed by successive waves of nomadic invasions， led by warlike tribes which would often move on to Europe， as was the case with Huns and Turkish A A Turkic people， the Khazars， ruled South Russia through the eighth They were important allies of the Byzantine Empire and waged a series of successful wars against the Arab CAn approximative map of the cultures in European Russia at the arrival of the VarangiansThe Early East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in Western Russia from the seventh century onwards and slowly assimilated the native Finno-Ugric tribes， such as the Merya， the Muromians and the M In the mid-ninth century， a group of Scandinavians， the Varangians， assumed the role of a ruling elite at the Slavic capital of N Although they were quickly assimilated by the predominantly Slavic population， the Varangian dynasty lasted several centuries， during which they affiliated with the Byzantine， or Orthodox church and moved the capital to Kiev in AD In this era， the term "Rhos" or "Rus" first came to be applied to the Varangians and later also to the Slavs who peopled the As well as one of the rulers who contributed to the name "rus" [] In the tenth to eleventh centuries this state of Kievan Rus became the largest in Europe and one of the most prosperous， due to diversified trade with both Europe and A The opening of new trade routes with the Orient at the time of the Crusades contributed to the decline and fragmentation of Kievan Rus by the end of the twelfth In the eleventh and twelfth centuries common era， the constant incursions of nomadic Turkish tribes， such as the Kipchaks and the Pechenegs， led to the massive migration of Slavic populations from the fertile south to the heavily forested regions of the north， known as Z The medieval states of Novgorod Republic and Vladimir-Suzdal emerged as successors to Kievan Rus on those territories， while the middle course of the Volga River came to be dominated by the Muslim state of Volga BLike many other parts of Eurasia， these territories were overrun by the Mongol invaders， who formed the state of Golden Horde which would pillage the Russian principalities for over three Later known as the Tatars， they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-day Russia， while the territories of present-day Ukraine and Belarus were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland， thus dividing the Russian people in the north from the Belarusians and Ukrainians in the Similarly to the Balkans and Asia Minor， long-lasting nomadic rule retarded the country's economic and social However， the Novgorod Republic together with Pskov retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke and was largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the Led by Alexander Nevsky， the Novgorodians repelled the Germanic crusaders who attempted to colonize the MuscovyMain article: MuscovyUnlike its spiritual leader the Byzantine Empire， Russia under the leadership of Moscow was able to revive and organized its own war of reconquest， finally subjugating its enemies and annexing their After the fall of Constantinople in 1453， Muscovite Russia remained the only more or less functional Christian state on the Eastern European frontier， allowing it to claim succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman EWhile still under the domain of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance， the duchy of Moscow began to assert its influence in Western Russia in the early fourteenth Assisted by the Russian Orthodox Church and Saint Sergius of Radonezh's spiritual revival， Muscovy inflicted a defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380) Ivan the Great eventually tossed off the control of the invaders， consolidated surrounding areas under Moscow's dominion and first took the title "grand duke of all the Russias"In the beginning of the sixteenth century， the Russian state set the national goal to return all Russian territories lost as a result of the Tatar invasion and to protect the southern borderland against attacks of Crimean Tatars and other Turkic The noblemen， receiving a manor from the sovereign， were obliged to serve in the The manor system became a basis for the nobiliary horse In 1547， Ivan the Terrible was officially crowned the first Tsar of R During his long reign， Ivan annexed the Muslim polities along the Volga River and transformed Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional By the end of the century， Russian Cossacks established the first settlements in Western S In the middle of the seventeenth century there were Russian settlements in Eastern Siberia， on Chukchi Peninsula， along the Amur River， on the Pacific coast， and the strait between North America and Asia was first sighted by a Russian explorer in The colonization of the Asian territories was largely peaceful， in sharp contrast to the build-up of other colonial empires of the Imperial Russia View of Neva River in Saint Petersburg Three generations of a Russian family， 1910Main article: Imperial RussiaMuscovite control of the nascent nation continued after the Polish intervention of under the subsequent Romanov dynasty， beginning with Tsar Michael Romanov in Peter the Great (ruled in) defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War， forcing it to cede Ingria， Estland， and L It was in Ingria that he founded a new capital， Saint P Peter succeeded in bringing ideas and culture from Western Europe to a severely underdeveloped R After his reforms， Russia emerged as a major European Catherine the Great， ruling from 1762 to 1796， continued the Petrine efforts at establishing Russia as one of the great powers of E Examples of its eighteenth-century European involvement include the War of Polish Succession and the Seven Years' W In the wake of the Partitions of Poland， Russia had taken territories with the ethnic Belarusian and Ukrainian population， earlier parts of Kievan Rus' As a result of the victorious Russian-Turkish wars， Russia's borders expanded to the Black Sea and Russia set its goal on the protection of Balkan Christians against a Turkish In 1783， Russia and the Georgian Kingdom (which was almost totally devastated by Persian and Turkish invasions) signed the treaty of Georgievsk according to which Georgia received the protection of RIn 1812， having gathered nearly half a million soldiers from France， as well as from all of its conquered states in Europe， Napoleon invaded Russia but， after taking Moscow， was forced to retreat back to E Almost 90% of the invading forces died as a result of on-going battles with the Russian army， guerillas and winter The Russian armies ended their pursuit of the enemy by taking his capital， P The officers of the Napoleonic wars brought back to Russia the ideas of liberalism and even attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt (1825)， which was followed by several decades of political Another result of the Napoleonic wars was the incorporation of Bessarabia， Finland， and Congress Poland into the Russian EThe perseverance of Russian serfdom and the conservative policies of Nicholas I of Russia impeded the development of Imperial Russia in the mid-nineteenth As a result， the country was defeated in the Crimean War， 1853–1856， by an alliance of major European powers， including Britain， France， Ottoman Empire， and Piedmont-S Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) was forced to undertake a series of comprehensive reforms and issued a decree abolishing serfdom in The Great Reforms of Alexander's reign spurred increasingly rapid capitalist development and Sergei Witte's attempts at The Slavophile mood was on the rise， spearheaded by Russia's victory in the Russo-Turkish War， which forced the Ottoman Empire to recognize the independence of Romania， Serbia and Montenegro and autonomy of BThe failure of agrarian reforms and suppression of the growing liberal intelligentsia were continuing problems however， and on the eve of World War I， the position of Tsar Nicholas II and his dynasty appeared Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I， and the consequent deterioration of the economy led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire， and ultimately to the overthrow in 1917 of the RAt the close of this Russian Revolution of 1917， a Marxist political faction called the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd and Moscow under the leadership of Vladimir L The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist P A bloody civil war ensued， pitting the Bolsheviks' Red Army against a loose confederation of anti-socialist monarchist and bourgeois forces known as the White A The Red Army triumphed， and the Soviet Union was formed in Russia as part of the Soviet Union S Basil's Cathedral and the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin in Moscow's Red SMain articles: History of the Soviet Union and Russian SFSRThe Soviet Union was meant to be a trans-national worker's state free from The concept of Russia as a separate national entity was therefore not emphasized in the early Soviet U Although Russian institutions and cities certainly remained dominant， many non-Russians participated in the new government at all LeninThis section is a You can help by expanding StalinOne of these was a Georgian named Joseph S After Lenin's death in 1924， a brief power struggle ensued， during which Stalin gradually eroded the various checks and balances which had been designed into the Soviet political system and assumed dictatorial power by the end of the Leon Trotsky and almost all other Old Bolsheviks from the time of the Revolution were killed or At the end of 1930s， Stalin launched the Great Purges， a massive series of political Millions of people whom Stalin and local authorities suspected of being a threat to their power were executed or exiled to Gulag labor camps in remote areas of Siberia or Central AStalin forced rapid industrialization of the largely rural country and collectivization of its In 1928， Stalin introduced his "First Five-Year Plan" for modernizing the Soviet Most economic output was immediately diverted to establishing heavy Civilian industry was modernized and many heavy weapon factories were The plan worked， in some sense， as the Soviet Union successfully transformed from an agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in an unbelievably short span of time， but widespread misery and famine ensued for many millions of people as a result of the severe economic After the Great Patriotic War started in 1941 the German army had considerable success in the early stages of the campaign， they suffered defeat when they reached the outskirts of M The Red Army then stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943， which became the decisive turning point for Germany's fortunes in the The Soviets drove through Eastern Europe and captured Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 (see Great Patriotic War) During the war， the Soviet Union lost more than 27 million [citizens] (including eighteen million [civilians])Although ravaged by the war， the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe after the war， including the eastern half of G Stalin installed loyal communist governments in these satellite During the immediate postwar period， the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy， with control always exerted exclusively from M The Soviets extracted heavy war reparations from the areas of Germany under their control， mostly in the form of machinery and industrial The Soviet Union consolidated its hold on Eastern Europe (see Eastern bloc) The United States helped the Western European countries establish democracies， and both countries sought to achieve economic， political， and ideological dominance over the Third W The ensuing struggle became known as the Cold War， which turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies， the United Kingdom and the United States， into its Stalin died in early 1953 presumably without leaving any instructions for the selection of a His closest associates officially decided to rule the Soviet Union jointly， but the secret police chief Lavrenty Beria appeared poised to seize dictatorial General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and other leading politicians organized an anti-Beria alliance and staged a coup d'é Beria was arrested in June 1953 and executed later that year; Khrushchev became the undisputed leader of the Soviet UKhrushchev Yuri Gagarin， the first human in Under Khrushchev， the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite， Sputnik 1， and the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the E Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration， however， were generally unproductive， and foreign policy toward China and the United States suffered reverses， notably the Cuban Missile Crisis， when he began installing nuclear missiles in Cuba (after the United States installed Jupiter missiles in Turkey which nearly provoked a war with the Soviet Union) Over the course of several angry outbursts at the United Nations， Khrushchev was increasingly seen by his colleagues as belligerent， boorish， and The remainder of the Soviet leadership removed him from power in Following the ousting of Khrushchev， another period of rule by collective leadership ensued， lasting until Leonid Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the pre-eminent figure in Soviet political Brezhnev is frequently derided by historians for stagnating the development of the Soviet Union (see "Brezhnev stagnation") In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union， the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to GorbachevIn the mid 1980s， the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev came to He introduced the landmark policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring)， in an attempt to modernize Soviet Glasnost meant that the harsh restrictions on free speech that had characterized most of the Soviet Union's existence were removed， and open political discourse and criticism of the government became possible Perestroika meant sweeping economic reforms designed to decentralize the planning of the Soviet However， his initiatives provoked strong resentment amongst conservative elements of the government， and an unsuccessful military coup that attempted to remove Gorbachev from power instead led to the collapse of the Soviet U Boris Yeltsin came to power and declared the end of exclusive Communist The USSR splintered into fifteen independent republics， and was officially dissolved in December of 1991 (see History of the Soviet Union)Since then， Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and a market economy to replace the strict centralized social， political， and economic controls of the Soviet Post-Soviet RussiaMain article: History of post-Soviet RussiaSee also: Politics of Russia Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union， Boris Yeltsin had been elected President of Russia in June 1991 in the first direct presidential election in Russian In October 1991， as Russia was on the verge of independence， Yeltsin announced that Russia would proceed with radical market-oriented reform along the lines of "shock therapy"After the disintegration of the USSR， the Russian economy went through a Russia took up the responsibility for settling the USSR's external debts， even though its population made up just half of the population of the USSR at the time of its The largest state enterprises (petroleum， metallurgy， and the like) were controversially privatized for the small sum of $US 600 million， far less than they were worth， while the majority of the population plunged into Russia's Congress of People's Deputies， in which the Communist presence was the strongest， attempted to impeach Yeltsin on March 26， Yeltsin's opponents gathered more than 600 votes for impeachment， but fell 72 votes On September 21， 1993， Yeltsin disbanded the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies by decree， which was illegal under the On the same day there was a military showdown， the Russian constitutional crisis of With military help， Yeltsin held The conflict resulted in a number of civilian casualties， but was resolved in Yeltsin's According to different sources， the total number of deceased was between 300 and 2，000 Elections were held and the current Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted on December 12， Modern MoscowThe 1990s were plagued by armed ethnic conflicts in the North C Such conflicts took a form of separatist insurrections against federal power (most notably in Chechnya)， or of ethnic/clan conflicts between local groups (， in North Ossetia-Alania between Ossetians and Ingushs， or between different cla
