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Russian FederationРоссийская Федерация Rossiyskaya Federatsiya
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: none
Anthem: "Hymn of the Russian Federation"
Capitaland largest city	Moscow
Official languages	Russian official throughout nation; 30 others co-official in particular regions
Government	Semi-presidential federal republic
• President	Vladimir Putin
• Prime Minister	Mikhail Fradkov
Independence from the Soviet Union
• Declared	June 12 ,1991
• Finalized	December 25, 1991
• Water (%)	13
Population
• 2006 estimate	142,400,000 (8th)
• 2002 census	145,184,000
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
• Total	$1.576 trillion (10th)
• Per capita	$11,041 (62nd)
HDI (2004)	0.797 Error: Invalid HDI value (65th)
Currency	Ruble (RUB)
Time zone	UTC+2 to +12
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 to +13
Calling code	7
ISO 3166 code	RU
Internet TLD	.ru (.su reserved)
Rank based on April 2006 IMF data.

Russia (Template:Lang-ru, Rossiya; pronounced ), also the Russian Federation (Росси́йская Федера́ция, Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; , listen), is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of Eurasia. With an area of 17,075,400 km², Russia is the largest country in the world, covering almost twice the territory of the next-largest country, Canada, and has the world's eighth-largest population. Russia shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from northwest to southeast): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It is also close to the United States and Japan across relatively small stretches of water (the Bering Strait and La Pérouse Strait, respectively).

Formerly the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia is now the Federation of Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. After the Soviet era, the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet Union (then one of the world's two Cold War superpowers) that was located in Russia passed on to the Russian Federation.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's global role was greatly diminished, although the nation still remains influential. Because Russia is considered the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic matters (see Russia's membership in the United Nations) it is one of five states with permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council and veto power. It is also one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and possesses the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Russia is also leader of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the group of former Soviet republics, as well as Quartet, one of the six parties in the six-party talks, one of two leaders in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and a G8 member.

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 abroad.

USA

Politics

Template:Morepolitics The politics of Russia (the Russian Federation) take place in a framework of a federal presidential republic, whereby the President of Russia is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

Subdivisions

Federal subjects

Russian Federation is divided into 86 federal subjects. Each federal subject is a constituent part of the Federation.

There exist several different types of federal subjects. There are 21 republics within the Federation that enjoy a high degree of autonomy on most issues and these correspond to some of Russia's numerous ethnic minorities. The other types include 48 oblasts (provinces) and 7 krais (territories), as well as 7 autonomous okrugs (autonomous districts), and 1 autonomous oblast. Beyond these there are two federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg).

Federal districts

Federal subjects are grouped into federal districts, four of which are located in Europe and three—in Asia. They were added as a new layer between the federal subjects and the federal government. Unlike the federal subjects, the federal districts are not as such a subnational level of government, but are a level of administration of the federal government.

See also

• Federal districts of Russia
• Economic regions of Russia
  • Federal subjects of Russia
    • Republics of Russia
    • Oblasts of Russia
    • Krais of Russia
    • Autonomous oblasts of Russia
    • Autonomous okrugs of Russia
    • Federal cities of Russia

Geography and climate

Topography

The Russian Federation stretches across much of the north of the supercontinent of Eurasia. Although it contains a large share of the world's Arctic and sub-Arctic areas, and therefore has less population, economic activity, and physical variety per unit area than most countries, the great area south of these still accommodates a great variety of landscapes and climates. The mid-annual temperature is −5.5°C (22°F). For comparison, the mid-annual temperature in Iceland is 1.2°C (34°F) and in Sweden is 4°C (39°F), although the variety of climates within Russia makes such a comparison somewhat misleading. This is conditioned by negative temperature in Siberia. In the south, the country exists area with subtropical climate, where temperature is not lowered below +8°C all the year round. The average summer high temperature range between 26°C to 32°C (80 to 88°F) with occasional extreme heat in some interior locations exceeding 42°C (106°F)

Most of the land consists of vast plains, both in the European part and the part of Asian territory, that is largely known as Siberia. These plains are predominantly steppe to the south and heavily forested to the north, with tundra along the northern coast. The permafrost (areas of Siberia and the Far East)occupies more than half of the territory of Russia. Mountain ranges are found along the southern borders, such as the Caucasus (containing Mount Elbrus, Russia's and Europe's highest point at 5,642 m / 18,511 ft) and the Altai, and in the eastern parts, such as the Verkhoyansk Range or the volcanoes on Kamchatka. The more central Ural Mountains, a north-south range that form the primary divide between Europe and Asia, are also notable.

Russia has an extensive coastline of over 37,000 kilometres (23,000 mi) along the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, as well as more or less inland seas such as the Baltic, Black and Caspian seas. Some smaller bodies of water are part of the open oceans; the Barents Sea, White Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea are part of the Arctic, whereas the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan belong to the Pacific Ocean.

Major islands and archipelagos include Novaya Zemlya, the Franz Josef Land, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. (See List of islands of Russia). The Diomede Islands (one controlled by Russia, the other by the United States) are just three kilometres (1.9 mi) apart, and Kunashir Island (controlled by Russia but claimed by Japan) is about twenty kilometres (12 mi) from Hokkaidō.

Many rivers flow across Russia; see Rivers of Russia.

Major lakes include Lake Baikal, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. See List of lakes in Russia.

Borders

The most practical way to describe Russia is as a main part (a large contiguous portion with its off-shore islands) and an exclave, Kaliningrad, (at the southeast corner of the Baltic Sea).

The main part's borders and coasts (starting in the far northwest and proceeding counter-clockwise) are:

• borders with the following countries: Norway and Finland,
• a short coast on the Baltic Sea, facing eight other countries on its shores from Finland to Estonia and including the port of St. Petersburg,
• borders with Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine,
• a coast on the Black Sea, facing five other countries on its shores from Ukraine to Georgia,
• borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan,
• a coast on the Caspian Sea, facing four other countries on its shores from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan,
• borders with Kazakhstan, China (western), Mongolia, China (eastern), and North Korea.
• an extensive coastline that provides access to all the maritime nations of the world, and stretches
  • from the North Pacific Ocean including
    • the Sea of Japan (where the west shore of Russia's Sakhalin lies),
    • the Sea of Okhotsk (where the east shore of Sakhalin and its Kurile Islands lie), and
    • the Bering Sea,
  • through the Bering Strait (where its minor island of Big Diomede is separated by only a few miles from Little Diomede, a part of the US state of Alaska),
  • to the Arctic Ocean, including
    • the Chukchi Sea (where the south and east shores of its Wrangel Island lie),
    • the East Siberian Sea (where its west shore, and the east shores of its New Siberian Islands lie),
    • the Laptev Sea (where their west shores lie),
    • the Kara Sea (where the east shore of its Novaya Zemlya lies),
    • the Barents Sea (where their west shore, the south shores of its Franz-Josef Land the port of Murmansk and important naval facilities lie, and where the White Sea reaches far inland).

The exclave, constituted by the Kaliningrad Oblast,

• shares borders with
  • Poland to its south and
  • Lithuania to its north and east, and
• has a northwest coast on the Baltic Sea.

The Baltic and Black Sea coasts of Russia have less direct and more constrained access to the high seas than its Pacific and Arctic ones, but both are nevertheless important for that purpose. The Baltic gives immediate access to the nine other countries sharing its shores, and between the main part of Russia and its Kaliningrad Oblast exclave. Via the straits that lie within Denmark, and between it and Sweden, the Baltic connects to the North Sea and the oceans to its west and north. The Black Sea gives immediate access to the five other countries sharing its shores, and via the Dardanelles and Marmora straits adjacent to Istanbul, Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea with its many countries and its access, via the Suez Canal and the Straits of Gibraltar, to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The salt waters of the Caspian Sea, the world's largest lake, provide no access to the high seas.

Spatial extent

The two most widely separated points in Russia are about 8,000 km (5,000 mi) apart along a geodesic (i.e. shortest line between two points on the Earth's surface). These points are: the boundary with Poland on a 60-km-long (40-mi-long) spit of land separating the Gulf of Gdańsk from the Vistula Lagoon; and the farthest southeast of the Kurile Islands, a few miles off Hokkaidō Island, Japan.

The points which are furthest separated in longitude are "only" 6,600 km (4,100 mi) apart along a geodesic. These points are: in the West, the same spit; in the East, the Big Diomede Island (Ostrov Ratmanova).

The Russian Federation spans eleven time zones.

Largest cities

As of 2005 Russia has 13 cities with over a million inhabitants.

Economy

Introduction

More than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia is now trying to further develop a market economy and achieve more consistent economic growth. Russia saw its comparatively developed centrally planned economy contract severely for five years, as the executive and the legislature dithered over the implementation of reforms and Russia's aging industrial base faced a serious decline.

Crash

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's first slight recovery, showing signs of open-market influence, occurred in 1997. That year, however, the Asian financial crisis culminated in the August depreciation of the ruble. This was followed by a debt default by the government in 1998, and a sharp deterioration in living standards for most of the population. Consequently, 1998 was marked by recession and an intense capital flight.

Recovery

Nevertheless, the economy started recovering in 1999. The recovery was greatly assisted by the weak ruble, which made imports expensive and boosted local production. Then it entered a phase of rapid economic expansion, the GDP growing by an average of 6.7% annually in 1999–2005 on the back of higher petroleum prices, a weaker ruble, and increasing service production and industrial output. The country is presently running a huge trade surplus, which has been helped by protective import barriers, and rampant corruption which ensures that it is almost impossible for foreign and local SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) to import goods without the help of local specialist import firms, such as the Russia Import Company. Some import barriers are expected to be abolished after Russia's accession to the WTO.

The recent recovery, made possible due to high world oil prices, along with a renewed government effort in 2000 and 2001 to advance lagging structural reforms, has raised business and investor confidence over Russia's prospects in its second decade of transition. Russia remains heavily dependent on exports of commodities, particularly oil, natural gas, metals, and timber, which account for about 80% of exports, leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world prices. Industrial military exports after undergoing sharp contraction is now the major non-commodity export. In recent years, however, the economy has also been driven by growing internal consumer demand that has increased by over 12% annually in 2000–2005, showing the strengthening of its own internal market.

The economic development of the country has been extremely uneven: the Moscow region contributes one-third of the country's GDP while having only a tenth of its population. GDP increased by 7.2% in 2004, 6.4% in 2005 and about 7% in 2006.

Recent economy

The country's GDP (PPP) soared to $1.5 trillion in 2004, making it the ninth largest economy in the world and the fifth largest in Europe. If the current growth rate is sustained, the country is expected to become the second largest European economy after Germany and the sixth largest in the world within a few years.

In 2005, according to the Federal Service of State Statistics, GDP reached $765 billion nominally (21.7 trillion rubles), equal to $1.6 trillion in international dollars (PPP; purchasing power parity). Inflation was 10.9% percent. Expenditures of the consolidated budget have reached 5942 billion rubles ($215 billion). The government plans to reduce the tax burden, although the time and scale of such a reduction remains undecided. However, some experts ( ) believe what official statistic underestimates Russian GDP by 28% because of inaccuracy of decades old statistical system (for example, it didn’t count small enterprises and whole sectors of new economy). IMSG estimated that nominal Russian GDP reached $970 billion in 2005 .

In 2005 Russia exported 241.3 billion dollars and imported 98.5 billion dollars. This means that Russia registered a trade surplus of 142.8 billion dollars in 2005, up about 33% from 2004's foreign trade surplus of $106.1 billion dollars.

It's estimated what direct foreign investment reach at least $23 billion in 2006.

On January 5, 2007 Russia's international reserves reached $303.9 billion nominally and projected to grow to $350–450 billion by the end of 2007 .

Thanks to high oil prices, Russian oil exports totaled $117 billion in 2005 while gas exports totaled $32 billion in the same year. That means that oil and gas made up 60% of total Russian exports in 2005.

Knowing the importance of oil and gas to the economy, a Stabilization Fund was formed by the government in January 2004. This fund takes in revenues from oil and gas exports and is designed to help offset oil market volatility. This fund was also set up in order to prevent the ruble from appreciating. The Stabilization Fund (SF) grew to $76.6 billion in November 2006. Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said in October 2006 the fund will continue to increase over the coming years, and will exceed $149 billion by late 2007 and about $260.4 billion by the end of 2009. Russia is paying off its foreign debt mainly from the Stabilization Fund, which hit $76.9 billion as of July 1. Russia repaid the bulk of its outstanding debt to the Paris Club of Creditor Nations on August 18-21. The debt totaled $1.9 billion as of October 1, compared to $23.7 billion on July 1.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia, the monthly nominal average salary in June 2006 was about 10,975 rubles (about $408 nominally; about $740 PPP), 25.6 percent higher than in June 2005 and 7 percent more than in May 2006.

For the year of 2007, Russia's GDP is projected to grow to about $1.2 trillion nominally (31.2 trillion rubles) that would be about $2.3 trillion PPP and would make Russia the second largest economy in Europe.

Challenge

Some perceive the greatest challenge facing the Russian economy to be encouraging the development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in a business climate with a young and less-than-sufficient functional banking system. Few of Russia's banks are owned by oligarchs, who often use the deposits to lend to their own businesses. The 2005 Milken Institute's ratings place Russia at the 51st place in the world, out of 121 countries by the availability of capital.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank have attempted to kick-start normal banking practices by making equity and debt investments in a number of banks, but with very limited success.

However, about twenty-five of the biggest banks of Russia get entry into Top 1000 banks of the world by The Banker . Many more Russian banks have very high international ratings by Moody's and Fitch, including "investment" level.

Other problems include disproportional economic development of Russia's own regions. While the huge capital region of Moscow is a bustling, affluent metropolis living on the cutting edge of technology with a per capita income rapidly approaching that of the leading Eurozone economies, much of the country, especially its indigenous and rural communities in Asia, lags significantly behind. Market integration is nonetheless making itself felt in some other sizeable cities such as Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad, and Ekaterinburg, and recently also in the adjacent rural areas.

The arrest of Russia's wealthiest businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of fraud and corruption in relation to the large-scale privatizations organized under then-President Yeltsin, contrary to some expectations, has not caused most foreign investors to worry about the stability of the Russian economy. Most of the large fortunes currently in evidence in Russia are the product of either acquiring government assets at particularly low costs or gaining concessions from the government. Other countries have expressed concerns and worries at the "selective" application of the law against individual businessmen, though government actions have been received positively in Russia. Russia occupies 122th place among 157 countries in the Index of Economic Freedom.

Prospect

Encouraging foreign investment is also a major challenge due to legal, cultural, linguistic, economic and political peculiarities of the country. Nevertheless, there has been a significant inflow of capital in recent years from many European investors attracted by cheaper land, labor and higher growth rates than in the rest of Europe

Very high levels of education and societal involvement achieved by the majority of the population, including women and minorities, secular attitudes, mobile class structure, and better integration of various minorities into the mainstream culture set Russia far apart from the majority of the so-called developing countries and even some developed nations.

The country is also benefiting from rising oil prices and has been able very substantially to reduce its formerly huge foreign debt. However, equal redistribution of capital gains from the natural resource industries to other sectors is still a problem. Nonetheless, since 2003, exports of natural resources started decreasing in economic importance as the internal market has strengthened considerably, largely stimulated by intense construction, as well as consumption of increasingly diverse goods and services. Yet teaching customers and encouraging consumer spending is a relatively tough task for many provincial areas where consumer demand is primitive. However, some laudable progress has been made in larger cities, especially in the clothing, food, and entertainment industries.

Additionally, some international firms are investing in Russia. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Russia had nearly $26 billion in cumulative foreign direct investment inflows during the period (of which $11.7 billion occurred in 2004).

Russia faces considerable income inequalities that hinder Russia's potential to become a more diversified economy.

Demographics

Despite its comparatively high population, Russia has a low average population density due to its enormous size. Population is densest in the European part of Russia, in the Ural Mountains area, and in the south-western parts of Siberia; the south-eastern part of Siberia that meets the Pacific Ocean, known as the Russian Far East, is sparsely populated, with its southern part being densest. The Russian Federation is home to as many as 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. As of the 2002 Russian census, 79.8% of the population is ethnically Russian, 3.8% Tatar, 2% Ukrainian, 1.2% Bashkir, 1.1% Chuvash, 0.9% Chechen, 0.8% Armenian. The remaining 10.3% includes those who did not specify their ethnicity as well as (in alphabetical order) Assyrians, Avars, Azeris, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Buryats, Chinese, Cossacks, Estonians, Evenks, Finns, Georgians, Germans, Greeks, Ingushes, Inuit, Jews, Kalmyks, Karelians, Kazakhs, Koreans, Kyrgyz, Lithuanians, Latvians, Maris, Mongolians, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians, Poles, Romanians, Tajiks, Tuvans, Turkmen, Udmurts, Uzbeks, Yakuts, and others. Nearly all of these groups live compactly in their respective regions; Russians are the only people significantly represented in every region of the country.

The Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian. The Cyrillic alphabet is the only official script, which means that these languages must be written in Cyrillic in official texts.

The Russian Orthodoxy is the dominant Christian religion in the Federation. Islam is the second most widespread religion, predominating in the Volga region and Caucasus. Other religions include various Protestant churches, Judaism, Roman Catholicism and Buddhism. Induction into religion takes place primarily along ethnic lines. Ethnic Russians are mainly Orthodox whereas most people of Turkic and Caucasian extraction are Sunni Muslim. Kalmyks are the only predominantly Buddhist people in Europe. However, due to decades of suppression of religion during Soviet times, religious adherence remains nominal for most of the population.

Culture

• Cinema of Russia
• Russian traditions and superstitions
• Ethnic Russian music
• List of Russians
• Music of Russia
• Russian architecture
• Russian cuisine
• Russian humour
• Russian literature
  • Russian-language poets
  • Russian formalism
  • Russian folklore

Etymology

Template:NameWikt

The name of the country derives from the name of the Rus' people. The origin of the people itself and of their name is a matter of some controversy.

See also

Miscellaneous

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Peoples

• Ket people
• Nenets people
• Tuvan people

References

1. From Article 1 of Constitution of Russia: "The names "Russian Federation" and "Russia" shall be equivalent."
2. Template:Ru icon "Влияют ли переселенцы на язык СМИ?". Lenizdat.ru. 2006-05-31. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

• Roderic Lyne, Strobe Talbott, Koji Watanabe: Engaging With Russia – The Next Phase, A Report to The Trilateral Commission; Washington, Paris, Tokyo; 2006
• The New Columbia Encyclopedia, Col.Univ.Press, 1975
• World Civilizations:The Global Experience, by Peter Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart Schwartz, and Marc Gilbert
• Russia for Dummies, India Lambert, 1975

External links

Wikimedia Atlas of Russia

Government resources

• Template:Ru icon Duma - Official site of the parliamentary lower house
• Federative Council - Official site of the parliamentary upper house
• Kremlin - Official presidential site
• Template:Ru icon Gov.ru - Official governmental portal
• Template:Ru icon Russian Federation Today - Official issue of the Federal Assembly
• Russian Federal Customs Service
• Central Bank of Russia
• World Security Institute's Johnson's Russia List
• Russian Life Magazine: the 50-year-young magazine of Russian culture, history and life
• Russia Profile - English Internet Magazine on Politics, Business and Culture in Russia
• Internet Blog on Russian Issues in English
• Russian News Agency Ria Novosti
• Russia photo gallery and city guide
• Culture of Russia - with support of Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography Template:Ru icon
• Encyclopaedia Britannica's Country Portal site
• BBC Country Profile - Russia
• Russian Space Program
• CIA World Factbook - Russia
• News From Russia
• U.S. State Department Consular Information Sheet: Russia
• Russia Energy Resources and Industry from U.S. Department of Energy
• Russia History Timeline 1533 - 1991

Template:Countries bordering the Sea of Japan and/or the Yellow Sea

Template:Norwegian-Greenland-Barents Sea Template:Caspian Sea Template:Pacific Ocean

Template:Eurasian Economic Community Template:Slavic-speaking

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• Bicontinental countries
• Black Sea countries
• Caspian Sea countries
• G8 nations
• Organization of the Islamic Conference
• Russia