Russia

Russia sprawls across nearly one-sixth of the Earth's land mass (about 17 million square kilometers). It embraces a varied topography and has every type of climate except tropical.

The Ural Mountains mark the traditional division between European and Asiatic Russia. To the west, Russian territory stretches over a broad plain, broken only by occasional low hills. To the east are the vast Siberian lowlands and the deserts of central Asia. Beyond are the barren Siberian highlands and the mountain ranges of the Russian Far East. Great pine forests cover half the country; south of these are the steppes (prairies), where the soil is rich and dark. A small subtropical zone lies south of the steppes, along the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas.

Climate is varied. Winters are long and cold and summers brief. In parts of the eastern Siberian tundra, temperatures of-68°C (-90°F) have been recorded.

The Russian Federation is a multi-ethnic state that comprises more than 100 ethnic groups. The majority of the population is Eastern Slavic, but it is made up of peoples belonging to less numerous ethnic groups, including Eskimos. Although most groups are distinguished by their own language and culture, Russian language and traditions are well established, with Russian the common language in government and education.

Religion, long suppressed under the Soviet regime, now flourishes, and examples of all major and many less widely practiced religions can be found. Once an underdeveloped, peasant society, Russia made considerable economic progress under Communist rule, mainly by the force of a centralized command economy and basic industrialization. Soviet communism, already stagnant by the 1980s and ill-equipped to meet the demands of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, collapsed by 1991, forcing Russia into a difficult transition toward a democratic state and market-based economy.

The Russian Federation continues to seek to redefine its relationships with its new independent neighbors, as well as its role in the world.