Founded in the 12th century, the Principality of Muscovy was able to emerge from over 200 years of Mongol domination (13th-15th centuries) and to gradually conquer and absorb surrounding principalities. In the early 17th century, a new Romanov Dynasty continued this policy of expansion across Siberia to the Pacific. Under PETER I (ruled 1682-1725), hegemony was extended to the Baltic Sea and the country was renamed the Russian Empire. During the 19th century, more territorial acquisitions were made in Europe and Asia. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the imperial household. The Communists under Vladimir LENIN seized power soon after and formed the USSR. The brutal rule of Josef STALIN (1928-53) strengthened Russian dominance of the Soviet Union at a cost of tens of millions of lives. The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985-91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize Communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into 15 independent republics. Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and market economy to replace the strict social, political, and economic controls of the Communist period. While some progress has been made on the economic front, recent years have seen a recentralization of power under Vladimir PUTIN and an erosion in nascent democratic institutions. A determined guerrilla conflict still plagues Russia in Chechnya.
Sprawling across the easternmost part of northern Europe and occupying the whole of northern Asia, the Russian Federation is the largest country in the world. It’s 21 republics cover three-quarters of the area of what was for almost 70 years (until in collapsed in 1991) the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Stretching from west to east along one third of the globe, Russia has long coastlines along the Arctic Ocean in the north and along the Pacific Ocean n the east. It’s south-eastern coastline is on the Sea of Japan. Other parts of the country also have coastlines with the Sea of Okhotsk, the Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Gulf of Finland.
It’s mainland has borders with 12 other countries. In the far east it borders the northeast tip of North Korea. In the south it borders China in two places: to the east and west of its long border with Mongolia. The western half of its southern border is with the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. To the west of the Caspian Sea are Azerbaijan and Georgia, and north of the Black Sea are Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Estonia. Northeast of the Gulf of Finland is a border with Finland and at its very northwest tip the Russian Federation borders on a tiny part of Norway. Further west, tucked in between Lithuania and Poland, and with a coast on the Baltic Sea, is another small area of Russian territory, centred on the coastal city of Kaliningrad. If anyone can enlighten me as to why or how this little territory became so, please let me know! I can’t find this information in any book.
Whilst the Russian Federation encompasses the country as a whole, two distinct areas are often referred to as European Russia and Siberia. These are separated by the Ural Mountains. Euro Russia, where most of the population lives and where the bulk of Russian industry and agriculture is located, consists mainly of a huge fertile plain, the East Europe Plain. In the far southwest, the Caucasus Mountains form a natural boundary with Georgia and Azerbaijan. Much of the agriculture is concentrated in the south of the plain, as the harsh climates further north are not conductive to the growing of crops or to the raising of livestock. Less that one-tenth of Russia is under cultivation. Cereals are the main crops, although in most years the country produces only about half of the grain it requires, importing the rest. Raising of cattle and dairy farming is also mostly based in the west.
To the east of the Urals, the Siberian Plain is largely desolate, treeless and flat. Central Siberia, to the east of the Yenisey River, is a region of plateaus that rise to the south to a series of mountain ranges that border Mongolia and China.
Russia has abundant mineral resources, most of which are based in Siberia. These contributed greatly to the country’s rapid transformation during the Soviet period from a predominantly agricultural economy to one that was heavily industrialized. These mineral resources underpin the federation’s present reliance on heavy industry and provide important mining exports. They include coal, petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, bauzite, copper, lead, zinc, gold and other precious metals. Steel making, agricultural machinery, chemicals, textiles and food processing are among the principal industries, centred on such large cities to the west of the Urals asw Moscow, St Petersburg, Novgorod and Volgograd, but also in a number of cities in Siberia such as Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk.
The country’s move toward a market economy has been fraught with difficulties and has been accompanied by a marked increase in social and financial inequalities as a new class of rich entrepreneurs has emerged. The majority of Russians live in relative poverty, victims of steeply rising prices and severe shortages of food and other basic consumer items. Corruption and crime have also increased significantly and a number of the leaders of organized crime are among the richest citizens in the nation.
Russia has contributed much to literature, music and the performing arts, especially in the nineteenth century. Writers such as Turgenev prepared the way for other giants of literature like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Among composers, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky established Russia’s place in musical history. The Imperial Russian Ballet was founded in 1735, and Russian ballet has become internationally renowned for its choreography and dancers like Pavlova and Nureyev. |
