Russia (Russian: ?????´?, Rossiya), also the Russian Federation (Russian: ?????´????? ??????´???, Rossiyskaya Federatsiya), is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of Eurasia. With an area of 17,075,400 square kilometres, Russia is the largest country in the world by land mass, and covers almost twice the territory of the next-largest country, Canada. It has the world's eighth largest population. 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 Korea. It is also close to the United States and Japan across relatively small stretches of water. ------------------------------------------------- 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 1991. 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 matters. -------------------------------------------------- Most of the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet Union, then one of the world's two superpowers, lay in Russia. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's global role was greatly diminished compared to that of the former Soviet Union. 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.----------------------Prior to the Common Era, the vast lands of Southern Russia were home to un-united tribes, such as Proto-Indo-Europeans and Scythians. Between the third and sixth centuries, 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 Avars. A Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled South Russia through the eighth century. They were important allies of the Byzantine Empire and waged a series of successful wars against the Arab Califates.-----------------------------The 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 Meshchera. In the mid-ninth century, a group of Scandinavians, the Varangians, assumed the role of a ruling elite at the Slavic capital of Novgorod. 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 882. ------------------------------------------------------- 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 region. 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 Asia. 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 century. ----------------------------------------------------- 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 Zalesye. 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 Bulgaria.------------Like 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 centuries. 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 west. Similarly to the Balkans and Asia Minor, long-lasting nomadic rule retarded the country's economic and social development. 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 country. Led by Alexander Nevsky, the Novgorodians repelled the Germanic crusaders who attempted to colonize the region.------------------The perseverance of Russian serfdom and the conservative policies of Nicholas I of Russia impeded the development of Imperial Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. 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-Sardinia. Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) was forced to undertake a series of comprehensive reforms and issued a decree abolishing serfdom in 1861. The Great Reforms of Alexander's reign spurred increasingly rapid capitalist development and Sergei Witte's attempts at industrialization. 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 Bulgaria. ---------------------------------------------------------- The 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 precarious. 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 of the Tsar in February 1917. ---------------------------------------------------- At 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 Lenin. The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party. 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 Army. The Red Army triumphed, and the Soviet Union was formed in 1922.----------------------------The Soviet Union was meant to be a trans-national worker's state free from nationalism. The concept of Russia as a separate national entity was therefore not emphasized in the early Soviet Union. Although Russian institutions and cities certainly remained dominant, many non-Russians participated in the new government at all levels.-------------------------One of these was a Georgian named Joseph Stalin. 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 decade. Leon Trotsky and almost all other Old Bolsheviks from the time of the Revolution were killed or exiled. At the end of 1930s, Stalin launched the Great Purges, a massive series of political repressions. 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 Asia. ----------------------------------------------- Stalin forced rapid industrialization of the largely rural country and collectivization of its agriculture. In 1928, Stalin introduced his "First Five-Year Plan" for modernizing the Soviet economy. Most economic output was immediately diverted to establishing heavy industry. Civilian industry was modernized and many heavy weapon factories were established. 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 upheaval. --------------------------------------- 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 Moscow. 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 war. 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 superpower. The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe after the war, including the eastern half of Germany. Stalin installed loyal communist governments in these satellite states. During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, with control always exerted exclusively from Moscow. The Soviets extracted heavy war reparations from the areas of Germany under their control, mostly in the form of machinery and industrial equipment. 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 World. 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 foes. Stalin died in early 1953 presumably without leaving any instructions for the selection of a successor. His closest associates officially decided to rule the Soviet Union jointly, but the secret police chief Lavrenty Beria appeared poised to seize dictatorial control. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and other leading politicians organized an anti-Beria alliance and staged a coup d'état. Beria was arrested in June 1953 and executed later that year; Khrushchev became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union.---------------------------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 life. 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 change.-----------------------------In the mid 1980s, the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. He introduced the landmark policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), in an attempt to modernize Soviet communism. 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 again. Perestroika meant sweeping economic reforms designed to decentralize the planning of the Soviet economy. 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 Union. Boris Yeltsin came to power and declared the end of exclusive Communist rule. The USSR splintered into fifteen independent republics, and was officially dissolved in December of 1991.-----------------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 era.--------------he Amur Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) is a rare subspecies of tiger (P. tigris). Also known as the Siberian, Korean, Manchurian, or North China Tiger, it is the largest natural animal in the feline family Felidae. The male tiger is also the most powerful cat in fights against other predators. --------------------------------------------------- The Amur Tiger is critically endangered. In the early 1900s, it lived throughout the Korean Peninsula, northeastern Mongolia, southeastern Russia, and northeastern China. Today, it has virtually disappeared from South Korea and is largely confined to a very small part of Russia's southern Far East (the Amur-Ussuri region of Primorye and Khabarovsk, a location where it and the Amur Leopard are now being actively protected). There are very few tigers in Manchuria (northeastern China) and fewer still in North Korea. Captive breeding and conservation programs are currently active. ------------------------------------------------------------- The tiger population in the Sikhote-Alin was 250 in 1992, increasing to 350 as of 2004, despite significant losses of cubs due to car accidents on the single road that crosses their territory. Illegal poaching has been brought under control thanks to frequent road inspections. It is rumoured that there are still around 20 of these tigers in the Mount Changbai area of China. ----------------------------------------- As the total population of these tigers fell to 150 in the wild, many subpopulations are possibly not genetically viable, subject to potentially catastrophic inbreeding. However, Russian conservation efforts have led to a revival of the subspecies, and the number of individuals in the Primorsky region of Russia has risen from 450 to 500 in the past decade, indicating positive growth.