The Russian Federation or Russia, is a country that stretches over a vast
expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. With an area of 17,075,400 km˛,
it is the largest country in the world, covering almost twice the territory
of either Canada, China, or the United States. It ranks seventh in the world
in population, following China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil,
and Pakistan.
Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR),
Russia has been an independent country since the dissolution of the union in
December 1991. Under the Soviet system it was called the Russian Soviet
Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR).
Most of the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet
Union, then one of the world's two superpowers, lay in Russia. Consequently,
with the breakup of the USSR, Russia was again vying for an influential role
on the world stage. This influence is notable, but is still far from that of
the former Soviet Union.
History
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 300-year old Romanov Dynasty. The Communists under
Vladimir Lenin seized power soon after and formed the USSR. The brutal rule
of Joseph Stalin 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
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. A determined guerrilla
conflict still plagues Russia in Chechnya.
Politics
The Russian Federation is a federative democratic republic with a president,
directly elected for a four-year term, who holds considerable executive
power. The president, who resides in the Kremlin, nominates the highest
state officials, including the prime minister or premier, who must be
approved by parliament. The president can pass decrees without consent from
parliament and is also head of the armed forces and of the national security
council.
Russia's bicameral parliament, the Federative Assembly or Federalnoye
Sobraniye consists of an upper house known as the Federative Council (Soviet
Federatsy), composed of 178 delegates serving a four-year term (two are
appointed from each of the 89 subdivisions), and a lower house known as the
State Duma (Gosudarstvennaya Duma), comprising 450 deputies also serving a
four-year term, of which 225 are elected by direct popular vote from single
member constituencies and 225 are elected by proportional representation
from nation-wide party lists.
Subdivisions
The Russian Federation consists of a great number of different federal
subjects, making a total of 89 constituent components. 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 ethnic minorities. The
remaining territory consists of 49 oblasts (provinces) and 6 krais (territories),
in which are found 10 autonomous okrugs (autonomous districts) and 1
autonomous oblast. Beyond these there are 2 federal cities (Moscow and St.
Petersburg). Recently, 7 extensive federal districts (four in Europe, three
in Asia) have been added as a new layer between the above subdivisions and
the national level.
Geography
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. Most of the land consists of vast plains, both in the European
part and the Asian part 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. Mountain ranges are found along the
southern borders, such as the Caucasus (containing Mount Elbrus, Russia's
and Europe's highest point at 5,633 m) 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 km 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 found in them
include Novaya Zemlya, the Franz-Josef Land, the New Siberian Islands,
Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin.
Many rivers flow across Russia. See Rivers of Russia.
Major lakes include Lake Baikal, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega.
Economy
A decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia is still
struggling to establish a modern market economy and achieve strong economic
growth. Russia saw its economy contract for five years, as the executive and
legislature dithered over the implementation of reforms and Russia's
industrial base faced a serious decline.
Russia achieved a slight recovery in 1997, but that year's Asian financial
crisis culminated in the August depreciation of the ruble, a debt default by
the government, and a sharp deterioration in living standards for most of
the population. The economy subsequently has rebounded, growing by an
average of more than 6% annually in 1999-2002 on the back of higher oil
prices and a weak ruble.
This recovery, along with a renewed government effort in 2000 and 2001 to
advance lagging structural reforms, have 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 over 80% of exports,
leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world prices.
The greatest challenge facing the Russian economy is how to encourage the
development of SME (small and medium sized enterprises) in a business
climate dominated by oligarchs and a large dysfunctional banking system.
Many of Russia's banks are owned by entrepreneurs or oligarchs, who often
use the deposits to lend to their own businesses.
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.
The recent arrest of Russia's most successful businessman Mikhail
Khodorkovsky on charges of fraud and corruption in relation to the
large-scale privatizations organised under then-President Yeltsin has caused
many foreign investors to worry about the stability of the Russian economy.
Most of the large fortunes currently prevailing in Russia seem to be the
product of either acquiring government assets particularly cheaply or
gaining concessions from government cheaply. Other countries have expressed
concerns and worries at the "selective" application of the law against
individual businessmen.
However, some international firms are investing heavily in Russia. An
example is Scottish and Newcastle, a beer firm who has found the beer market
in Russia to be growing much faster than in other areas of Europe. Scottish
and Newcastle has already invested heavily in the Russian beer industry
(2004).
Demographics
Russia is fairly sparsely populated and has extremely 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-eastern part of
Siberia. The Russian Federation is home to as many as 160 different ethnic
groups and indigenous peoples. As of the 2002 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, and the remainder of 10.3%
includes Mordvins, Belarusians, Avars, Kazakhs, Udmurts, Azerbaijanis,
Maris, Germans, Evenks, Ingushes, Inuit, Jews, Kalmyks, Karelians, Koreans,
Ossetians, Dolgan Nenetses, Tuvans, Yakuts and still others.
The Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual
republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian.
Cyrillic alphabet is the only official script, which means that these
languages must be written in Cyrillic in official texts. The Russian
Orthodox Church is the dominant Christian religion in the Federation; other
religions include Islam, various Protestant faiths, Roman Catholicism,
Buddhism and Judaism.
