Russia

Russia is the world’s largest country in area. It is almost twice as big as Canada, the second largest country. From 1922 until 1991, Russia was the most important republic in the Soviet Union, which was the most powerful Communist country in the world. The Soviet Union broke apart in 1991. After the breakup, Russia set up new political, legal, and economic systems.

Russia extends from the Arctic Ocean south to the Black Sea and from the Baltic Sea east to the Pacific Ocean. It covers much of the continents of Europe and Asia. Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia. St. Petersburg, on the coast of the Baltic Sea, is Russia’s chief seaport.

Most of Russia’s people are ethnic Russians—that is, descendants of an early Slavic people called the Russians. More than 100 minority nationalities also live in Russia. Approximately three-fourths of the people make their homes in urban areas. Russian cities have better schools and health-care facilities than the rural areas do. However, the cities suffer from such urban problems as overcrowding, crime, and environmental pollution.

Russia has abundant natural resources, including vast deposits of petroleum, natural gas, coal, and iron ore. However, many of these reserves lie far from settled areas. Russia’s harsh, cold climate makes it difficult to take advantage of many of the country’s valuable resources.

Russia traces its history back to a state that emerged in Europe among the East Slavs during the 800’s. Over time, large amounts of territory and many different peoples came under Russian rule. For hundreds of years, czars (emperors) and empresses ruled Russia. They had almost complete control over most aspects of Russian life. Under these rulers, the country’s economic development lagged behind the rapid industrial progress that began in Western Europe in the 1700’s. Most of the people were poor, uneducated peasants.

Russia made many great contributions to the arts during the 1800’s. Such authors as Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy wrote masterpieces of literature. Russian composers, including Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, created music of lasting greatness. Russians also made valuable artistic contributions in the fields of architecture, ballet, and painting.

Opposition to the czars’ absolute power increased during the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s. Revolutionaries overthrew the Russian government in 1917. The next year, Russia became the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (R.S.F.S.R.).

In 1922, the R.S.F.S.R. and three other republics established a new nation called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), also known as the Soviet Union. The R.S.F.S.R. became the largest and most influential republic of the Soviet Union, which included 15 republics by 1956. In 1991, Communist rule in the Soviet Union collapsed, and the country broke apart. Russia and most of the other republics formed a new, loose federation called the Commonwealth of Independent States.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia entered a transitional period. The Communist leaders of the Soviet Union had controlled all aspects of the country’s economy and government. Russia’s new national government worked to move the country from a state-controlled economy to one based on private enterprise. The government also began to establish new political and legal systems in Russia.

This article deals with Russia from its early history to the present. For more detailed information about the history of Russia between 1922 and 1991—when it was part of the Soviet Union—see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.).

Government

National government.

In 1992—shortly after the Soviet Union broke up—Russia established a transitional (temporary) government headed by Boris N. Yeltsin. Yeltsin had been elected president of the R.S.F.S.R. in 1991. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin continued to serve as president of Russia until he resigned in 1999. In December 1993, Russia adopted a new constitution that established a permanent government.

The president of Russia is the government’s chief executive, head of state, and most powerful official. The president is elected by the people to serve a six-year term. The president, with the approval of the lower house of parliament, appoints a prime minister to serve as head of government. The prime minister is the top-ranking official of the Council of Ministers (cabinet). The council carries out the operations of the government.

Russia’s parliament, which is called the Federal Assembly, consists of a lower house known as the State Duma and an upper house called the Federation Council. The State Duma makes the country’s laws. Legislation proposed by the Duma must be approved by the Federation Council and by the president before becoming law. However, the State Duma can override a veto by the Federation Council and send legislation directly to the president. The Federation Council approves government appointments and such presidential actions as the declaration of martial law and the use of armed forces outside of Russia.

Members of the State Duma are elected to five-year terms. Half of the members are directly elected by the people. The other half are elected by proportional representation. Under this method, each political party that receives at least 5 percent of the popular vote gets a number of seats determined by the percentage of the vote it receives. Members of the Federation Council are local government officials. They are not elected directly by the people. Half of the members are appointed by local governors. The other half are elected by local legislatures. All Russian citizens 18 years of age and older may vote in the country’s elections.

Local government.

Russia consists of dozens of federal administrative units. These include oblasts (regions), republics, autonomous okrugs (areas), krais (territories), autonomous oblasts, and federal cities. These divisions may contain smaller units called raions (districts). Councils called soviets manage local affairs in both urban and rural areas.

Many of the administrative units have taken more control over their own affairs since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Some have pressed for independence from Russia. However, in 2000, the president and the State Duma began passing measures designed to reassert federal control over local governments.

Politics.

The Communist Party was the only legal political party in the Soviet Union until March 1990. At that time, the Soviet Constitution—which gave the Communist Party its broad powers—was amended. A coalition of political parties with a democratic platform, known as the Democratic Russia Movement, began to play a key role in the reform movement. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to the end of the Democratic Russia Movement. Its component groups developed into separate political parties.

In parliamentary elections in 1999, the Communist Party won the largest number of seats in the State Duma. A new political group called Unity won the second highest number. Unity favored continuing the reforms begun by Yeltsin’s administration. In a move that surprised many political observers, Unity formed a coalition government with the Communists, who opposed Yeltsin’s reforms. Vladimir V. Putin, who was named Russia’s acting president in 1999 and was elected president in 2000, put together the coalition.

Elections in 2003 gave a vast majority of seats to the new United Russia party, which was formed from Unity and several other parties. United Russia supported Putin’s government. United Russia again won a vast majority of seats in Duma elections held in 2007, 2011, 2016, and 2021. Other political parties represented in the Duma include the Communist Party, which supports more government control of land and industries; the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party; and the left-leaning A Just Russia party.

Courts.

The former Soviet government had a political police system called the Committee on State Security, known as the KGB. The KGB could interfere with and influence the legal system, and major violations of human rights took place. The KGB no longer exists in Russia.

Today, Russia has two security agencies. The Federal Security Service handles internal security, and the Foreign Intelligence Service collects information from other countries. In addition, Russia’s 1993 Constitution protects the civil rights of all Russian citizens. The prosecutor-general, who serves as the chief legal officer of Russia, is nominated by the president and is approved by the Federation Council.

Russia’s highest court is called the Constitutional Court. This court, which was established in 1992, rules on the constitutionality of the country’s laws. Russia’s local courts are called people’s courts.

Armed forces.

The Soviet Union had the largest armed forces in the world. About 4 million people served in its army, navy, and air force. When the Soviet Union collapsed, command of its armed forces passed to the Commonwealth of Independent States. Several former republics—including Russia—said they would also create their own armed forces. In 1992, Russia began to form its own armed forces and absorbed some of the former Soviet forces. Russian men must serve one year in the military. Women may volunteer to serve.

People

The people of Russia are distributed unevenly throughout the country. The vast majority live in the western—or European—part of Russia. The more rugged and remote areas to the east are sparsely inhabited.

Ancestry.

About 80 percent of Russia’s people are of Russian ancestry. These ethnic Russians make up the largest group of Slavic peoples. Members of more than 100 other nationality groups also live in Russia. The largest groups include Tatars (or Tartars), Ukrainians, Chuvash, Bashkirs, Belarusians, Mordvins, Chechens, Germans, Udmurts, Mari, Kazakhs, Avars, Armenians, and Jews, who are considered a nationality group in Russia. Many of them live in Russia’s autonomous territories. Remote parts of the Far North are sparsely inhabited by small Siberian groups, including Aleuts, Chukchi, Inuit, and Koryaks. These northern peoples differ from one another in ancestry and language, but they share a common way of life shaped by the harsh, cold climate.

The government of the Soviet Union had granted special political and economic privileges to Russians who were loyal to the Communist Party. It repressed the distinctive cultures of other nationalities and did not always uphold their rights. This policy sharpened resentment among some peoples. Today, pride in their culture and the desire for greater independence are growing among the members of many nationalities, including Russians.

Ethnic Russians are descended from Slavs who lived in eastern Europe several thousand years ago. Over time, migration split the Slavs into three subgroups—the East Slavs, the West Slavs, and the South Slavs. The Russians trace their heritage to the first East Slav state, Kievan Rus, which emerged in the 800’s.

Kievan Rus suffered repeated invasions by Asian tribes, including the Pechenegs, Polovtsians, and Mongols. The Mongol invasions forced some people to migrate to safer, forested regions near present-day Moscow. Moscow became an important Russian state in the 1300’s. This area has remained at the heart of Russia ever since. But people of many ethnic groups have lived in Russia, especially since the 1500’s, when extensive expansion and colonization began.

Language.

Russian is the official language of Russia. Spoken Russian sounds fairly uniform from one end of the country to the other. Nevertheless, the language has three major regional accents—northern, southern, and central. The small differences rarely interfere with communication among Russian speakers. Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet (see Alphabet (Other alphabets)). Many minority nationality groups in Russia have their own language and speak Russian as a second language.

Way of life

The government of the Soviet Union controlled many aspects of life in the country. It exerted great influence over religion, education, and the arts. The independence of Russia following the breakup of the Soviet Union brought greater freedom and triggered many other changes in the lives of the people.

City life.

About three-fourths of Russia’s people live in urban areas. Approximately 35 cities in Russia have populations over 500,000. Two of Russia’s cities—Moscow and St. Petersburg—each have more than 5 million inhabitants.

Some Russian cities remain crowded. Beginning in the 1930’s, large numbers of people migrated from the countryside to urban areas. During World War II (1939-1945), bombs destroyed many houses and other buildings. These circumstances combined to create a severe housing shortage in Russian cities. Many families had to share kitchen and bathroom facilities. Although the situation has greatly improved, millions of city dwellers live in small apartments in high-rise buildings. Single-family houses are more common in small towns and in the older neighborhoods of many cities. Some of these dwellings lack indoor plumbing and other modern conveniences. At the same time, Russia’s newly wealthy inhabit luxury apartments and large homes.

Shortages of food, services, and manufactured goods have been common features of city life in Russia. The shift toward capitalism that began in the 1990’s has not yet cured the shortages. Even when goods become available, they are often too expensive for many people to afford. Russian cities also face such urban problems as crime and environmental pollution.

Rural life.

About one-fourth of the Russian population lives in rural areas. Single-family housing is common in these areas, but the Soviet government built many city-style apartment buildings. In the most remote areas of Russia, some homes lack gas, plumbing, running water, and electric power. In addition, the quality of education, health care, and cultural life is lower than in the cities. Rural life is changing, however. Rural stores, for example, have a wider selection of goods available than they once offered.

When Russia was part of the Soviet Union, most rural people worked on huge farms run by the government. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia began to break up these farms. New laws allow people to withdraw from the government farms and set up private farms.

Clothing.

Most people in the Soviet Union wore plain clothing. Stores offered little variety in styles, and most people had a limited number of outfits. In the 1970’s, consumers began to demand greater variety. They preferred to buy imported clothing whenever it was available. As a result, Soviet clothing manufacturers began to pay more attention to style and quality.

Now that Russia has opened its markets, stylish clothing made in Russia and in other parts of the world has become more widely available. Many young people dress fashionably. However, fashionable clothing is expensive. Russia’s harsh winters affect styles.

Traditional Russian clothing consists of colorfully embroidered shirts and blouses, embroidered headwear, and shoes woven from bast, a tough fiber from the bark of certain trees. Rural dwellers wore these costumes on special occasions, such as weddings and holidays. The traditional costume is rarely worn today, however.

Food and drink.

The traditional Russian diet is hearty. Eating habits are changing, however, as more people turn to convenience and fast foods. Beef, chicken, pork, and fish are popular main dishes. The most commonly eaten vegetables include beets, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, radishes, and tomatoes. Russians are fond of soups, breads, and dairy products, and they consume large quantities of sugar. Frying remains a widespread method of preparing food.

Many Russian dishes are popular around the world. They include blinis (thin pancakes served with smoked salmon or other fillings and sour cream) and beef Stroganoff (sautéed beef strips with onions, mushrooms, and a sour cream sauce). Other favorite dishes include borscht (beet soup) and piroshki (baked or fried dumplings filled with meat and cabbage).

Typical breakfast foods in Russia include eggs, porridge, sausages, cheese, bread, butter, and jam. Most of the people eat their main meal at midday. It consists of a salad or appetizer; soup; meat or fish with potatoes or kasha (cooked buckwheat); and dessert, such as stewed fruit or pastries. In the evening, most Russians eat a light supper.

Russians drink large quantities of tea, but coffee has become popular, especially among urban Russians. Kvass, a beerlike beverage made from fermented black bread, is especially popular in summer. Russians also enjoy soft drinks, juices, and mineral water.

Vodka is Russia’s trademark alcoholic beverage. Russians also drink wine, champagne, cognac, beer, and other alcoholic beverages. Alcohol abuse has been and remains a major social problem in Russia.

Health care

in the Soviet Union was free. The Russian government remains committed to meeting the basic health-care needs of its people. An insurance program to finance health care was introduced in 1993. A private health-care sector has begun to grow. Russia has many doctors, nurses, and health-care facilities. However, tight government budgets for health care, shortages of medicines and equipment, low wages for health-care providers, and bureaucracy continue to create problems. Conditions in rural areas are worse than in the cities.

Recreation.

Russians enjoy watching television, reading, playing chess, seeing motion pictures and plays, visiting museums, walking, and taking part in sports. The government actively promotes athletic activities, especially team sports. Soccer is the most popular participant and spectator sport in Russia. Other popular sports include gymnastics, basketball, and such winter sports as hockey, ice skating, and skiing. Tennis is growing in popularity.

Russia has many athletic clubs, stadiums, recreational centers, and other sporting facilities. Schools provide physical education at all levels. There are also special sports camps and clubs for children and adults.

The people of Russia are avid nature lovers, and they enjoy spending time in the countryside. Many Russians have country cottages called dachas. There, they garden, hike, bicycle, swim, fish, gather mushrooms, and take part in other outdoor activities.

The majority of Russia’s people vacation in the summer. Price increases, an end to government support, and ethnic unrest have made vacationing away from home more difficult for many Russians. However, resort areas along the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Volga River—and in Siberia—remain popular destinations.

Religion.

The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest religious denomination in the country. January 7, the Russian Orthodox Christmas, is a national holiday. In addition to Russian Orthodoxy, religions that have full freedom in Russia include Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and certain Christian denominations. These religions enjoy full freedom because they were recognized by the state prior to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Religions that were not registered in Russia prior to the fall of the Soviet Union face certain restrictions. Many of these religions conduct intense recruiting efforts in Russia. Restricted religions include Baptists, Mormons, Pentecostalists, Roman Catholics, and Seventh-day Adventists. These groups must register annually for 15 years before being allowed to participate in such activities as publishing religious literature and operating religious schools. However, the Russian government has not strictly enforced the law.

Education.

The Soviet government controlled education and considered it a major vehicle of social advancement. As a result, almost all Russians can read and write. Today, public education in Russia remains free for all citizens. New private schools are also opening. The Soviet government had banned such schools. Russian educators are changing the school curriculum to better prepare students for the new economy. They are also trying to satisfy the needs of Russia’s nationality groups.

All children attend school for 11 years, from age 6 to 17. Elementary education includes nine primary and intermediate grades. When pupils finish ninth grade, they may choose to complete their schooling by enrolling in a secondary school or vocational school. The secondary schools emphasize science and mathematics. They also teach language, literature, history, social sciences, and physical education. English is the most widely taught foreign language. The vocational schools prepare young people for careers as technicians or in various branches of industry and agriculture.

Starting with the intermediate grades, pupils must pass annual exams to advance to the next grade. Students who pass a national examination upon the completion of secondary school receive a certificate, and those who score well also get a gold or silver medal. Schools use a number grading scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest.

Many gifted children attend special schools. These schools stress individual subjects such as mathematics or physics, languages, or the arts. Russia also has schools for children with physical or learning disabilities.

Students must pass an entrance exam to be admitted to a university or institute of higher education. Russia has hundreds of institutions of higher education equivalent to colleges and universities. Important universities include Lomonosov Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University.

Museums and libraries.

Russia has hundreds of museums. The State Historical Museum in Moscow is the country’s chief historical museum. Several museums deal with the Russian Revolution. They include Moscow’s State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, commonly called the Revolution Museum. The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has one of the largest art collections in the world.

Russia has thousands of libraries. Most towns and large villages have a public library. There are also libraries that specialize in particular subjects and libraries run by factories, schools, labor unions, and professional and civic organizations. The Russian State Library in Moscow is the largest library in Russia. Other major libraries in Moscow include the All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature, the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Historical Public Library, and the library at Lomonosov Moscow State University. St. Petersburg is home to the National Library of Russia and the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The arts

The arts in Russia date back to the earliest days of the country. But Russian artists did not produce internationally recognized works in many fields until the early 1800’s. Throughout much of the 1800’s and the early 1900’s, Russia became an international leader in classical music, ballet, drama, and literature. Several Russian painters and sculptors also gained worldwide fame.

This section discusses Russian architecture, music, ballet, painting, and sculpture. For information on Russian drama and literature, see Russian literature with its list of Related articles.

Architecture

in Russia has been shaped by religious and Western influences combined with local traditions. About 988, Grand Prince Vladimir I, ruler of the state of Kievan Rus, was converted to the Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox Christian) faith. For hundreds of years, Russian architecture reflected the influence of the Byzantine style. The most important structures were churches, which had distinctive onion-shaped domes. The best-known Byzantine church is St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, built by Czar Ivan IV (also called Ivan the Terrible), from 1555 to 1560. See Byzantine art.

In 1682, Peter I, also known as Peter the Great, became czar. Peter introduced Western European artistic styles into Russia. He founded the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 and brought Western European architects and artists to help design it. Many of the buildings dating from his reign and through the mid-1700’s were designed in the Western European Baroque style by Italian and French architects. A famous example is the Great Palace, which was begun in the early 1700’s at Peterhof (now Petrodvorets), near St. Petersburg.

Among the most widely recognized architectural works in Russia are the buildings within the enclosed fortress in Moscow called the Kremlin. The Kremlin includes churches, palaces, and other buildings erected from the late 1400’s to the mid-1900’s. Some Kremlin buildings house Russia’s government, and others serve as museums.

Music.

Until the mid-1700’s, Russian music consisted almost entirely of vocal music sung in church worship services and of folk music, which was also mainly vocal. Nonreligious music began to flower during the reign of Elizabeth, the empress of Russia from 1741 to 1762. She established the Academy of Arts in 1757, which taught music. Italian opera became popular during her reign. The popularity of music in Russia expanded further during the reign of Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, who ruled from 1762 to 1796. The earliest written collection of Russian folk songs appeared in four volumes published between 1776 and 1795.

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Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture

Mikhail Glinka is credited with founding a distinctively Russian school of classical music in the early and middle 1800’s. He blended folk songs and religious music into his works and also introduced subjects from Russian history. His most influential work is probably his second opera, Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842), based on a fairy tale written by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

By the late 1800’s, Russian music flourished. Such composers as Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, and Alexander Borodin wrote operas and instrumental music. Much of their work was based on Russian history and folklore. In the early 1900’s, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky gained international fame for their musical compositions. Stravinsky wrote several influential ballet scores, including The Firebird (1910), Petrouchka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). See the list of Russian composers in the Related articles section of Classical music.

Ballet.

Russian ballet became internationally famous starting in the mid-1800’s. The leading ballet companies that continue to perform today are the Mariinsky Ballet (once the Russian Imperial Ballet, later known as the Kirov Ballet) of St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow. See Ballet (History); Ballets Russes; Bolshoi Ballet.

Painting and sculpture.

Until the early 1900’s, the most important Russian paintings were created for religious purposes. Russian artists decorated the interiors of churches with wallpaintings and mosaics. Stylized paintings called icons were produced for many centuries. An icon is a religious painting considered sacred in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Icons were produced according to strict rules established by the church, and their style changed little over the years. See Icon.

By the mid-1800’s, Moscow and St. Petersburg had busy art schools. Russian artists also began to create paintings and sculptures on more varied subjects.

A burst of creativity in Russian art exploded during the years before the start of World War I in 1914. Russian artists were strongly influenced by the modern art movements emerging in Western Europe. The painters Marc Chagall, Alexei von Jawlensky, and Wassily Kandinsky eventually settled in Western Europe.

Artists who remained in Russia developed two major art movements, Suprematism and Constructivism. Both movements produced paintings that were abstract—that is, they had no recognizable subject matter. The leading Suprematist was Kasimir Malevich. The major Constructivists included Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner, and Vladimir Tatlin. See Malevich, Kasimir; Chagall, Marc; Gabo, Naum; Kandinsky, Wassily; Pevsner, Antoine.

Land and climate

Russia is the largest country in the world. It has an area of 6,601,670 square miles (17,098,246 square kilometers), almost twice that of Canada, the second largest country. A train trip between Moscow in the west and Vladivostok in the east takes seven days and passes through eight time zones, including that of Moscow.

Land regions.

Many scientists divide Russia into four zones according to soil conditions and plant life, which are based mainly on climate. The zones form broad belts across Russia, and no sharp transitions separate them. From north to south, the zones are (1) the tundra, (2) the forest zone, (3) the steppes, and (4) the semidesert and mountainous zone.

The tundra lies in the northernmost part of Russia. It is largely a treeless plain. The tundra has short summers and long, severe winters. About half the region has permanently frozen soil called permafrost. Few people live in this bleak area. Plant life consists chiefly of low shrubs, dwarf trees, and moss. Animals of the tundra include reindeer, Arctic foxes, ermines, hares, and lemmings. Waterfowl live near the Arctic Ocean in summer.

The forest belt lies south of the tundra. The northern part of this belt is called the taiga. It consists of coniferous (cone-bearing) trees, such as cedar, fir, pine, and spruce. This area has poor, ashy soil, known as podzol, that makes it largely unfit for agriculture. Farther south, the coniferous forests give way to mixed forests of conifers, aspen, birch, elm, maple, oak, and other species. The soils in this zone support agriculture in some areas, and the area has a mild, moist climate. Brown bears, deer, elk, lynx, reindeer, and smaller animals such as beavers, rabbits, and squirrels roam the forests.

Grassy plains called steppes stretch across Russia south of the forests. The northern part of the steppe zone consists of wooded plains and meadows. The massive southern part is largely a treeless prairie. The best soils in Russia—brown soil and black, rich soil called chernozem—are found there. Most of the steppe zone is farmland. Birds, squirrels, and mouselike mammals called jerboas live in the steppes. Antelope inhabit the eastern steppes.

The semidesert and mountainous zone, the southernmost zone in Russia, has diverse soils and climate due to variations in elevation. It includes the dry, semidesert lowlands near the Caspian Sea, as well as the lush vegetation and mild climate of the Caucasus Mountains.

Geologists also divide Russia into five land regions that differ from the soil and vegetation zones. From west to east, the regions are (1) the European Plain, (2) the Ural Mountains, (3) the West Siberian Plain, (4) the Central Siberian Plateau, and (5) the East Siberian Uplands.

The European Plain

makes up most of the European part of Russia. It is the most densely populated region in the country. The European Plain is predominantly flat, averaging about 600 feet (180 meters) above sea level. Most of the nation’s industries are there, but the region is poor in natural resources. Forests cover much of the northern European Plain. The southern part is largely cropland. The plain is home to a variety of animal life. The Caucasus Mountains rise at the southern edge of the plain, between the Black and the Caspian seas. The mountains include 18,510-foot (5,642-meter) Mount Elbrus, the highest point in Europe.

The Ural Mountains

form the traditional boundary between the European and Asian parts of Russia. These mountains, worn down by streams, reach an average height of only about 2,000 feet (610 meters). The middle and southern Ural Mountains are rich in deposits of iron, copper, and other metals. The middle section is the region’s most heavily populated and highly industrialized area. Major cities in the region include Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.

The West Siberian Plain

is the largest level region in the world. This enormous plain covers more than 1 million square miles (2.6 million square kilometers) and rises no more than 500 feet (150 meters) above sea level. It is drained by the Ob River system, which flows northward into the Arctic Ocean. But drainage is poor, and the plain is marshy. The West Siberian Plain is rich in oil and natural gas deposits, and it is being developed rapidly. Cropland covers the southernmost part of the plain. The cities of Novosibirsk and Omsk are in this region.

The Central Siberian Plateau

slopes upward toward the south from coastal plains along the Arctic Ocean. It has an average height of about 2,000 feet (610 meters). Streams cut deeply through the region. The Sayan and Baikal mountains rise more than 11,000 feet (3,350 meters) along the plateau’s southern edge. Thick pine forests cover much of the Central Siberian Plateau, and its climate reaches extremes of heat and cold. The region has a wide variety of rich mineral deposits. Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk are its largest cities.

The East Siberian Uplands

are mainly a wilderness of mountains and plateaus. The mountains rise to 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) and form part of a series of ranges along the eastern coast of Asia and some offshore islands. About 25 active volcanoes are found on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The tallest volcano, snow-capped Klyuchevskaya, rises 15,584 feet (4,750 meters). The region has valuable mineral resources, but its harsh climate makes it difficult to tap them. Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean and Khabarovsk on the Amur River are the region’s most important cities.

Rivers and lakes.

Russia’s many large rivers have served as important means of communication and commerce. The construction of canals further improved these activities.

The Lena River in Siberia, 2,734 miles (4,400 kilometers) long, is Russia’s longest river. It empties into the Arctic Ocean. Other major rivers in Siberia include the Amur, Ob, and Yenisey rivers, all frozen seven to nine months a year. The Volga River is the longest river in European Russia. It originates in the Valdai Hills northwest of Moscow and flows 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) to the Caspian Sea. The Volga freezes for about three months each year. Other important rivers in European Russia include the Don and the Northern Dvina.

Russia has about 200,000 lakes. The Caspian Sea, a saltwater lake 92 feet (28 meters) below sea level, is the world’s largest inland body of water. It touches the southern part of European Russia. Lake Ladoga, near St. Petersburg, covers 6,835 square miles (17,703 square kilometers). It is the largest lake entirely in Europe. Lake Baikal, near the Baikal Mountains, is the deepest lake in the world. It plunges 5,315 feet (1,620 meters) deep.

Climate.

Russia is known for its long and bitter winters. The country’s hostile climate helped stop various invaders during its history, including the large armies of Napoleon in 1812 and of Adolf Hitler in 1941 and 1942. In the Moscow region, snow covers the ground for about five months each year. In the northernmost part of Russia, snow abounds for eight to nine months a year. Half the land has permafrost beneath the surface. Russia’s main cropland, in the southwest part of the country, has a short growing season and insufficient rainfall. Most of the coastal waters, lakes, and rivers freeze for much of the year.

Russia’s weather varies from extremely cold to extremely hot. Northeastern Siberia is one of the coldest regions in the world. January temperatures there average below –50 °F (–46 °C). Temperatures as low as –90 °F (–68 °C) have been recorded. The average July temperature in this region is 60 °F (16 °C), but it can climb to nearly 100 °F (38 °C). No other part of the world registers such a wide range of temperatures.

Precipitation (rain, melted snow, and other forms of moisture) is light to moderate. The European Plain and parts of the East Siberian Uplands receive the most rain. Vast inland areas get little rain. The heaviest snowfalls—up to 4 feet (120 centimeters) of snow a year—occur in western and central Siberia.

Economy

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has worked to reform its economic system. The country has attempted to shift from a state-controlled economy to a market-driven economy.

In the Soviet Union, central government agencies planned almost all aspects of economic life. The government owned and controlled all factories and farms, and private businesses were illegal. Soviet leaders transformed Russia from a farming country into an industrial giant. Heavy industry—such as chemicals, construction, machine tools, and steel—developed rapidly. Government ministries set production quotas and told managers what to produce and to whom to sell their goods. This planning led to rapid industrial development and impressive economic gains. But central control also suppressed new ideas and discouraged quality.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so did Russia’s economy. The most immediate problem was shortages of many goods. To overcome this situation, the new Russian government removed Soviet-era controls from the economy. The government let businesses set prices for nearly all goods and services and dropped restrictions on imports and exports. It allowed the ruble to be exchanged for other currencies at international rates.

Russia’s government also privatized (sold to companies or individuals) many state-owned enterprises. By 1997, privately owned businesses contributed more than half of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP)—the total value of all goods and services produced yearly. However, privatization left a small number of wealthy Russians in control of many of the country’s largest companies.

The reforms brought goods back to the shops, but prices skyrocketed. The Russian government struggled to get inflation and the country’s budget deficit under control. In 1998, the country experienced a major financial crisis. The government could not pay its debts, and the value of the ruble plunged. In response, Russia’s government began pursuing a more cautious economic policy. It managed the budget better, reduced public debt, and controlled inflation. As a result, the country’s economy quickly recovered.

Russia’s gross domestic product has grown since 2000. This growth has been driven by increasing exports of oil and metals and high world prices for these products. Demand for consumer products also has grown, helping Russia’s domestic industries.

Russia benefits from a skilled labor force and abundant natural resources. However, the country has attracted only limited foreign investments because the prospects for business success remain poor. The economic problems of the 1990’s led to a substantial decline in standard of living. Much of the population continues to live in poverty.

Natural resources.

Russia is one of the richest countries in terms of natural resources. It has the world’s largest forest reserves, enormous energy supplies, vast stretches of farmland, extensive mineral deposits, and many potential sources of hydroelectric power. Many of its resources, however, are far from the factories where they are put to use. Russia also has a wide variety of plant and animal life.

Manufacturing

accounts for about 15 percent of both Russia’s GDP and its employment. Much of Russia’s manufacturing occurs in the Moscow area. Heavy industry remains the most highly developed sector of the Russian economy. The machine-building industry makes a variety of heavy machinery and electrical equipment. Russia is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers. The country also manufactures aircraft, ships, spacecraft, tractors, and trains. The chemical industry produces chemical fibers, mineral fertilizers, petrochemicals, and soda ash. Most oil refining takes place in western Siberia and in the Volga-Urals region. The construction materials industry is also important. Russia also manufactures electronics, processed foods, and textiles.

Agriculture.

Russia has a large amount of farmland. But a short growing season, insufficient rainfall, and a lack of fertile soil make farming difficult. The Soviet Union’s wasteful and inefficient system of state-run farms added to Russia’s agricultural problems.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, there were about 15,000 large state-controlled farms in Russia. About half were state farms operated like government factories, called sovkhozy. Workers on sovkhozy received wages. The rest were collective farms called kolkhozy, which were government-controlled but managed in part by farmers.

The Russian government introduced a program to break up the state-controlled farms. The farms set up committees whose job it was to decide how to divide the farms into producer cooperatives or joint-stock companies. Many farms were reorganized. As agricultural land was privatized, some companies created large industrial farms.

Russian farmers grow many different crops. One of the main agricultural regions is the Black Earth Belt, which is a portion of the steppes (grassy plains) that stretches from the Ukrainian border to southwestern Siberia. This belt is famous for its dark, rich soil, known as chernozem (black earth). Other important farming regions include the Volga area, the northern Caucasus Mountains, and western Siberia.

Russia is one of the world’s major grain producers. After years of needing to import grain during Soviet times, Russia has now become a grain exporter. Russia is one of the world’s leading producers of barley, oats, potatoes, rye, sugar beets, sunflower seeds, and wheat. Russian farmers also grow many fodder crops (food crops for animals), fruits and vegetables, and rice. Grasses and corn are the primary fodder crops.

Livestock breeding is another important part of Russian agriculture. Cattle, chickens, hogs, and sheep are the livestock most commonly raised in the country.

Mining.

Russia has vast amounts of most of the minerals used in modern industrial production. The country has abundant coal deposits and huge reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Other resources include calcium phosphate minerals and phosphorites, used in fertilizers, and diamonds.

Russia is a major producer of iron ore, which is mined primarily in the western and southern parts of the country. Russia is also a leading producer of nickel. Nickel is mined in the Kola Peninsula, southern Urals, and the Taymyr Peninsula. The country is also an important producer of cobalt, copper, gold, silver, tin, and tungsten. Other materials mined in Russia include lead, platinum, salt, and zinc. Bauxite, a material used in making aluminum, is mined in western Siberia.

Fishing industry.

In the northern Barents Sea and the White Sea, Russian fishing crews catch blue whiting, cod, haddock, herring, and other fishes. Herring, pollock, and salmon are caught in the Pacific Ocean. Crews also fish in inland waterways, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Baltic and Black seas.

Caviar, the salted eggs of sturgeon, is a famous Russian delicacy. Many gourmets consider the caviar produced from sturgeon caught in the Caspian Sea to be the best in the world. However, overfishing has reduced the number of sturgeon in the Caspian to dangerously low levels.

Service industries

are industries that produce services, not goods. Service industries account for over half of both Russia’s GDP and its employment. In the former Soviet Union, these industries were underdeveloped. Most service-industry workers were poorly trained and underpaid. They had little incentive to provide good service because their customers had few or no alternatives. Today, private economic activity in the service sector flourishes. Hotels, restaurants, and retail shops benefit from the tens of millions of tourists who visit Russia each year. Many Russians work in the government, hospitals, real estate, or schools.

Energy sources.

Russia has enormous natural energy reserves, especially petroleum and natural gas. The country is one of the world’s largest producers of petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Much of Russia’s petroleum is found in western Siberia and the Volga-Ural Oil-Gas Region. Pipelines carry oil and natural gas from western Siberia to European Russia. Much of the coal is mined from the Kuznetsk Basin.

Over half of Russia’s electric power is generated from coal, natural gas, and oil. Hydroelectric plants also generate electric power. In addition, Russia also ranks as a major producer of nuclear power.

Trade.

The Soviet Union traded mainly with Eastern European Communist countries, such as Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland. After the overthrow of the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia’s trading activity with some of those countries grew less important. Russia’s main trading partners came to include the other former Soviet republics as well as China, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United States.

In 2012, after many years of negotiations, Russia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO is a group that promotes international trade.

Russia exports more than it imports. The country exports chemicals, machinery, metals, natural gas, petroleum, wheat, and wood and paper products. Major imports include chemicals, foods and beverages, machinery, and motor vehicles.

Transportation and communication.

Because of Russia’s vast size and harsh climate, transportation facilities and communications systems are unevenly distributed throughout the country. They are less developed than the transportation and communications networks of western Europe, the United States, and Japan.

Truck transport has grown rapidly since the introduction of private enterprise. However, Russia’s poorly developed highway network, combined with the country’s vast size, make truck transport difficult and costly. Railroads still handle a large amount of freight and passenger transportation in Russia, but much of the system needs modernization. A high-speed passenger rail line connects Moscow and St. Petersburg. River transportation carries only a small percentage of Russia’s freight traffic, because most rivers are frozen for much of the year.

Russia inherited its national airline, Aeroflot, from the Soviet Union. Aeroflot must now compete with new, privately owned companies. Russia has international airports in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and other cities.

Russia’s most important seaports—Arkhangelsk, Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Nakhodka, Novorossiysk, St. Petersburg, and Vladivostok—handle a large portion of the country’s foreign trade. However, the water at many Russian ports is frozen for many months of the year.

Public transportation is modern and inexpensive, but crowded. Several large cities, including Moscow, have clean, efficient subway systems. Buses, trams, and trolleys also operate in the cities. Bicycles are seen in large cities, but they are more common in rural and vacation areas. Horses and buggies can also be found in rural parts of Russia.

Following the downfall of the Soviet Union, Russia improved its telecommunications systems. Most Russians have access to at least basic telephone service. Cellular telephone service has become popular, especially in urban areas. Internet usage is expanding as more Russians gain access to computers.

Russia’s government owns or controls most of the national television and radio networks and newspapers. Hundreds of daily newspapers and thousands of other periodicals are published in Russia. The government often attempts to control or silence broadcasters and publishers that criticize it.

History

Russia’s unique geographic location astride both Europe and Asia has influenced its history and shaped its destiny. Russia never has been entirely an Eastern or a Western country. As a result, Russian intellectuals have long debated the country’s development and contribution to world history.

This section traces the major developments of Russian history. In 1917, revolutionaries overthrew the Russian czarist government. They changed Russia’s name to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (R.S.F.S.R.). In 1922, the R.S.F.S.R. and three other republics formed a new nation called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), also known as the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R. broke apart in 1991, and Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine invited the other republics to join a federation called the Commonwealth of Independent States. For more detailed information about this period, see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (History).

Early days.

Beginning about 1200 B.C., the Cimmerians, a Balkan people, lived north of the Black Sea in what is now southern Ukraine. Around 700 B.C., the Scythians, a nomadic people from central Asia, defeated the Cimmerians and drove them south. The Scythians controlled the region until about 200 B.C. They fell to the Sarmatians, an Iranian people. The Scythians and the Sarmatians lived in close contact with Greek colonies—later controlled by the Romans—along the northern coast of the Black Sea. They absorbed many Greek and Roman ways of life through trade, marriage, and other contacts. See Cimmerians.

Germanic tribes from the west, called the Goths, conquered the region about A.D. 200. The Goths ruled until about 370, when they were defeated by the Huns, a warlike Asian people. The Hun empire broke up after their leader, Attila, died in 453. The Avars, a tribe related to the Huns, began to rule the region in the mid-500’s. The Khazars, another Asian people, won the southern Volga and northern Caucasus regions in the mid-600’s. King Bulan led the conversion of Khazars to Judaism. They established a busy trade with other peoples. See Goths; Huns.

By the 800’s, Slavic groups had built many towns in eastern Europe, including what became the European part of Russia. They had also developed an active trade. No one knows where the Slavs came from. Some historians believe they came in the 400’s from what is now Poland. Others think the Slavs were farmers in the Black Sea region under Scythian rule or earlier. Slavs of what are now Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine became known as East Slavs. See Slavs.

The earliest written Russian history of the 800’s is the Primary Chronicle, written in what is now Kyiv, Ukraine, probably in 1111. It says that quarreling Slavic groups in the town of Novgorod (now Velikiy Novgorod) asked a Viking tribe to rule them and bring order to the land. The Vikings were called the Varangian Russes. Historians who accept the Primary Chronicle as true believe that Russia took its name from this tribe. According to the Primary Chronicle, a group of related Varangian families headed by a prince named Rurik arrived in 862. Rurik settled in Novgorod, and the area became known as the “land of the Rus.”

Many historians doubt that the Slavs of Novgorod invited the Vikings to rule them. They believe the Vikings invaded the region. Some historians claim the word Rus, from which Russia took its name, was the name of an early Slavic tribe in the Black Sea region. It is known that the first state founded by East Slavs was established in the 800’s at Kyiv, then an important trading center on the Dnieper River. But whether the Vikings had developed the town is unclear. Modern historians gave this state the name Kievan Rus. At the time they did, the usual spelling of the city’s name in English was Kiev, derived from its Russian name. Today, the name is sometimes spelled Kyivan Rus, from the Ukrainian spelling, Kyiv.

The state of Kievan Rus.

The Primary Chronicle states that Oleg, a Varangian, captured Kyiv in 882 and ruled as its prince. During the 900’s, the other principalities (prince-ruled regions) of Kievan Rus recognized Kyiv’s major importance. The city lay on the main trade route connecting the Baltic Sea with the Black Sea and the Byzantine Empire. In addition, its forces defended Kievan Rus against invading tribes from the south and east. The ruler of Kyiv came to be called grand prince and ranked above the other princes of Kievan Rus.

About 988, Grand Prince Vladimir I (Volodymyr in Ukrainian) became a Christian. At that time, the East Slavs worshiped the forces of nature. Vladimir made Christianity the state religion, and most people under his rule turned Christian. Vladimir later became a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Several grand princes were strong rulers, but Kyiv’s power began to decrease after the mid-1000’s. The rulers of other Kievan Rus principalities grew in power, and they fought many destructive wars. In Novgorod and a few other towns with strong local governments, the princes were driven out. Badly weakened by civil wars and without strong central control, Kievan Rus fell to huge armies of Mongols called Tatars, or Tartars, who swept across Russia from the east during the 1200’s (see Tatars).

Mongol rule.

In 1237, Batu, a grandson of the conqueror Genghis Khan, led between 150,000 and 200,000 Mongol troops into Russia. The Mongols destroyed one Russian town after another. In 1240, they destroyed Kyiv, and Russia became part of the Mongol Empire. It was included in a section called the Golden Horde. The capital of the Golden Horde was at Sarai, near what is now Volgograd.

Batu forced the surviving Russian princes to pledge allegiance to the Golden Horde and to pay heavy taxes. From time to time, the Mongols left their capital and wiped out the people of various areas because of their disloyalty. The Mongols also appointed the Russian grand prince and forced many Russians to serve in their armies. But they interfered little with Russian life in general. The Mongols were chiefly interested in maintaining their power and collecting taxes.

During the period of Mongol rule, which ended in the late 1400’s, the new ideas and reforming spirit of the Renaissance were dramatically changing many aspects of life in Western Europe. But under Mongol control, Russia was to a great extent cut off from these important Western influences.

The rise of Moscow.

In the early 1300’s, Prince Yuri of Moscow married the sister of the Golden Horde’s khan (ruler). Yuri was appointed the Russian grand prince about 1318. Mongol troops helped him put down threats to his leadership from other principalities. The Mongols also began letting the grand prince of Moscow collect taxes for them. This practice started with Ivan I (called the Moneybag) about 1330. Ivan kept some of the tax money. He bought much land and expanded his territory greatly. Other princes and boyars (high-ranking landowners) began to serve in Moscow’s army and government. In addition, Ivan persuaded the chief bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church to remain in Moscow. Until then, Kyiv had been the spiritual center of Russia.

Moscow grew stronger and richer as the Golden Horde grew weaker, chiefly because of struggles for leadership. In 1380, Grand Prince Dmitriy defeated a Mongol force in the Battle of Kulikovo, near the Don River. The victory briefly freed Moscow of Mongol control. The Mongols recaptured Moscow in 1382, but they no longer believed they could not be beaten.

During the late 1400’s, Moscow became the most powerful Russian city. Ivan III (called Ivan the Great) won control of Moscow’s main rival cities, Velikiy Novgorod and Tver, and great numbers of boyars entered his service. In 1480, Ivan made the final break from Mongol control by refusing to pay taxes to the Golden Horde. Mongol troops moved toward Moscow but turned back to defend their capital from Russian attack.

Ivan the Terrible.

After the rise of Moscow, its grand prince came to be called czar. In 1547, Ivan IV, also known as Ivan the Terrible, became the first ruler to be crowned czar. Ivan made the power of the czar over all Russia complete.

Ivan was brutal, extremely suspicious, and perhaps, at times, insane. He formed a special police force and began a reign of terror in which he ordered the arrest and murder of hundreds of aristocrats. Ivan gave his victims’ estates as payment to the service gentry (landowners serving in the army and government). He also established strict rules concerning the number of warriors and horses each landowner had to supply to the army. Ivan burned many towns and villages, and he killed church leaders who opposed him. In a fit of rage, Ivan even struck and killed his oldest son.

The number of service gentry increased rapidly. But their estates had no value unless the peasants remained on the land and farmed it. Ivan and later czars passed a series of laws that bound the peasants to the land as serfs. Serfdom became the economic basis of Russian power. The development of Russian serfdom differed sharply from changes occurring in Western Europe at the time. There, during the Renaissance, the growth of trade led to the use of money as royal payment. It also led to the disappearance of serfdom in Western Europe. See Serf.

Ivan fought Tatars at Astrakhan and Kazan to the southeast, and he won their lands. Russian forces then crossed the Ural Mountains and conquered western Siberia. Ivan also tried to win lands northwest to the Baltic Sea, but he was defeated by Lithuanian, Polish, and Swedish armies.

The Time of Troubles

developed because of a breakdown of the czar’s power after Ivan’s death. Fedor I, Ivan’s second son, was a weak czar. His wife’s brother, Boris Godunov, became the real ruler of Russia. Fedor’s younger brother, Dmitriy, was found dead in 1591, and Fedor died in 1598 without leaving a male heir.

The zemskii sobor (land council), a kind of parliament with little power, elected Boris czar. But a man believed to be Gregory Otrepiev, a former monk, posed as Dmitriy. This False Dmitriy claimed Dmitriy had not died, and he fled to Lithuania to avoid arrest. In 1604, False Dmitriy invaded Russia with Polish troops. The invaders were joined by many discontented Russians. This invasion marked the beginning of the Time of Troubles. Russia was torn by civil war, invasion, and political confusion until 1613.

False Dmitriy became czar in 1605, but a group of boyars killed him the next year. Prince Basil Shuisky then became czar. In 1610, Polish invaders occupied Moscow. They ruled through a powerless council of boyars until 1612. Meanwhile, a new False Dmitriy and a number of other pretenders to the throne won many followers. Peasant revolts swept through Russia. Landowners and frontier people called Cossacks fought each other, and sometimes joined together to fight powerful aristocrats (see Cossacks). The Polish control of Moscow led the Russians to unite their forces and drive out the invaders. They recaptured the capital in 1612.

The early Romanovs.

After the Poles were defeated, there was no one of royal birth to take the throne. In 1613, the zemskii sobor elected Michael Romanov czar. The Romanov czars ruled Russia for the next 300 years, until the February Revolution of 1917 ended czarist rule.

During the 1600’s, Russia annexed much of Ukraine and extended its control of Siberia eastward to the Pacific Ocean. During this same period, the Russian Orthodox Church made changes in religious texts and ceremonies. People called Old Believers objected to these changes and broke away from the church. This group still follows the old practices today.

Peter the Great.

In 1682, a struggle for power resulted in the crowning of two half brothers—Peter I (later known as Peter the Great) and Ivan V—as co-czars. Both were children, and Ivan’s sister Sophia ruled as regent (temporary ruler) until Peter’s followers forced her to retire in 1689. Peter made close contact with the many Western Europeans living in Moscow and absorbed much new information from them. He came into full power in 1696, when Ivan died.

Peter was greatly influenced by ideas of commerce and government then popular in Western Europe. A powerful ruler, he improved Russia’s military and made many important conquests. During Peter’s reign, Russia expanded its territory to the Baltic Sea in the Great Northern War with Sweden. In 1703, Peter founded St. Petersburg on the Baltic, and he moved the capital there in 1712. After traveling throughout Europe, he introduced Western-type clothing, factories, and schools in Russia, and reorganized Russia’s government to make it run more efficiently.

Peter forced Russia’s nobility to adopt many Western customs. He also increased the czar’s power over the aristocrats, church officials, and serfs. He dealt harshly with those who opposed these changes. Under Peter, the legal status of serfs further deteriorated.

Catherine the Great.

After Peter’s death in 1725, a series of struggles for the throne took place. The service gentry and the leading nobles were on opposite sides. Candidates for the throne who were supported by the service gentry won most of these struggles and rewarded their followers. The rulers increased the gentry’s power over the serfs and local affairs. The gentry’s enforced service to the state was gradually reduced. It was ended altogether in 1762. Later that year, Empress Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, came to power.

Magnificent royal parties and other festivities, all in the latest Western fashion, took place during the 1700’s. The arts were promoted, and many new schools were started, mainly for the upper classes. The Russian Imperial School of Ballet was founded, and Italian opera and chamber music were brought to Russia. It also became fashionable in Russia to repeat the newest Western ideas on freedom and social reform, especially during the rule of Catherine the Great. In 1767, Catherine called a large legislative assembly to reform Russian laws. However, the assembly achieved nothing.

The great majority of Russians remained in extreme poverty and ignorance during this period. In 1773 and 1774, the peasants’ discontent boiled over in a revolt led by Emelian Pugachev, a Cossack. The revolt swept through Russia from the Ural Mountains to the Volga River. It spread almost to Moscow before being crushed by government troops. In 1775, Catherine further tightened the landowners’ control over the serfs.

Under Catherine the Great, Russia rose to new importance as a major world power. In the late 1700’s, Austria, Prussia, and Russia gradually divided Poland among themselves. Russia gained nearly all of Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine from Poland. In wars against the Ottoman Empire (based in present-day Turkey), Russia gained Crimea and other Ottoman lands. Catherine died in 1796. She was succeeded by her son, Paul.

Alexander I.

Paul’s five-year rule ended with his murder in 1801. Alexander I, Paul’s son, became czar and talked about freeing the serfs, building schools for all young Russians, and even giving up the throne and making Russia a republic. He introduced several reforms, such as freeing many political prisoners and spreading Western ways and ideas. But he did nothing to lessen the czar’s total power or to end serfdom. Alexander knew that Russia’s military strength and its position as a major world power depended on income that was provided by serfdom. Under Alexander’s rule, Russia continued to win territory from Persia, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire.

In June 1812, Napoleon led the Grand Army of France into Russia. He wanted to stop Russian trade with the United Kingdom, France’s chief enemy, and to halt Russian expansion in the Balkan region. The French swept forward and reached Moscow in September 1812. Most people had left the city, and Napoleon and his army entered easily.

Soon afterward, fire destroyed most of Moscow. Historians believe the Russians themselves set the fire. After 35 days, the French left the city because they feared they might not survive the approaching bitter Russian winter. They began a disastrous retreat with little food and under continual attack by the Russians. Of the estimated 600,000 French troops in Russia, about 500,000 died, deserted, or were captured. Russia then became a major force in the campaign by several European countries that defeated Napoleon. See Napoleon I (Disaster in Russia).

Although Alexander had begun some reforms, harsh rule continued in Russia. Beginning in 1816, many young aristocrats became revolutionaries. They formed secret groups, wrote constitutions for Russia, and prepared to revolt. Alexander died in 1825, and Nicholas I became czar. In December of 1825, a group of revolutionaries, later called the Decembrists, took action. At the urging of the Decembrists, about 3,000 soldiers and officers gathered in Senate Square in St. Petersburg, and government troops arrived to face them. After several hours, the Decembrists fired a few shots. Government cannons ended the revolt by the Decembrists.

Nicholas I.

The Decembrist revolt deeply impressed and frightened Nicholas. He removed aristocrats, whom he now distrusted, from government office and replaced them with professional military officers. He tightened his control over the press and education, reduced travel outside Russia, and prohibited organizations that might have political influence. He established six special government departments. These departments, which included a secret police system, handled important economic and political matters. Through the special departments, Nicholas avoided the regular processes of Russian government and increased his control over Russian life.

In spite of Nicholas’s harsh rule, the period was one of outstanding achievement in Russian literature. Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, and others wrote their finest works. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Ivan Turgenev launched their careers. Many educated Russians began to debate the values of Westernized Russian life against those of old Russian life. The pro-Western group argued that Russia must learn from the West and catch up with it economically and politically. The other group argued for the old Russian ways, including the czarist system, a strong church, and the quiet life of the Russian countryside.

Nicholas became known as the “policeman of Europe” because he sent troops to put down revolutions in Poland and Hungary. Nicholas also declared himself the defender of the Eastern Orthodox Churches and fought two wars with the Muslim Ottoman Empire. In the war of 1828 and 1829, Russia gained much territory around the Black Sea. Russia also won the right to move merchant ships through the straits connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. The Ottoman Empire controlled these straits.

In 1853, the Crimean War broke out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The United Kingdom and France, which objected to Russian expansion in the Black Sea region, aided the Ottomans. Russia was defeated and signed the Treaty of Paris in 1856. This treaty forced Russia to give up some of the territory it had taken earlier from the Ottomans, and the pact forbade warships on and fortifications around the Black Sea.

Expansion in Asia.

After its defeat in the Crimean War, Russia began to expand in Asia. In the Far East, Russia won disputed territories from China. In 1858 and 1860, the Chinese signed treaties giving Russia lands north of the Amur River and east of the Ussuri River. By 1864, Russian forces defeated Muslim rebels in the Caucasus. Central Asia was won during a series of military campaigns from 1865 to 1876. In 1867, Russia sold its Alaskan territory to the United States for $7,200,000.

Alexander II.

Nicholas I died in 1855, during the Crimean War. His son, Alexander II, became czar. Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War taught Alexander a lesson. He realized that Russia had to catch up with the West to remain a major power. Alexander began a series of reforms to strengthen the economy and Russian life in general. In 1861, he freed the serfs and distributed land among them. He began developing railroads and organizing a banking system. Alexander promoted reforms in education, reduced controls on the press, and introduced a jury system and other reforms in the courts. He also established forms of self-government in towns and villages and modernized the armed forces.

But many young Russians believed that Alexander’s reforms did not go far enough. Some revolutionary groups wanted to establish socialism in Russia. Others wanted a constitution and a republic. These groups formed a number of public and secret organizations. After a revolutionary tried to kill Alexander in 1866, the czar began to weaken many of his reforms. The revolutionaries then argued that Alexander had never been a sincere reformer at all. During the mid-1870’s, a group of revolutionaries tried to get the peasants to revolt. They wanted to achieve either socialism or anarchism (absence of government) for Russia (see Anarchism). After this effort failed, a terrorist group called the People’s Will tried several times to kill the czar. Alexander then decided to set up a new reform program. But in 1881, he was killed by a terrorist’s bomb in St. Petersburg.

Alexander III,

Alexander’s son, became czar and soon began a program of harsh rule. Alexander III limited the freedom of the press and of the universities, and he sharply reduced the powers of Russia’s local self-governments. He set up a special bank to help the aristocrats increase their property. He also appointed officials called land captains from among the aristocrats and gave them much political power over the peasants. Alexander started some programs to help the peasants and industrial workers. But their living and working conditions improved very little during his reign.

Nicholas II

became Russia’s next, and last, czar in 1894. The revolutionary movement had been kept in check until the 1890’s, when a series of bad harvests caused starvation among the peasants. In addition, as industrialization increased, discontent grew among the rising middle class and workers in the cities. Discontented Russians were attracted to three political movements. (1) The liberal constitutionalists wanted to replace czarist rule with a Western type of parliamentary government. (2) The populists, who later formed the Socialist Revolutionary Party, sought to promote a revolution among rural peasants and workers in the cities. (3) The Marxists wanted to promote revolution among the city workers. The Marxists followed the socialist teachings of Karl Marx, a German social philosopher (see Marx, Karl). In 1898, the Marxists established the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

Between 1899 and 1904, the discontent of the Russian people increased. Worker strikes and other forms of protest took place. In 1903, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party split into two groups—the Bolsheviks (members of the majority) and the Mensheviks (members of the minority). V. I. Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, later called Communists.

The Revolution of 1905.

On Jan. 22, 1905, thousands of unarmed workers marched to the czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The workers were on strike, and they planned to ask Nicholas II for reforms. Government troops fired on the crowd and killed or wounded hundreds of marchers. After this Bloody Sunday slaughter, the revolutionary movement, led mainly by the liberal constitutionalists, gained much strength. In February, Nicholas agreed to establish an elected lawmaking body, called the Duma, to advise him. More strikes broke out during the summer, however, and peasant and military groups revolted. In part, the growing unrest was linked to the increasingly unpopular Russo-Japanese War. This war had broken out in February 1904 after a Japanese attack on Russian ships. The war ended with Russia’s defeat in September 1905.

In October 1905, a general strike paralyzed the country. Revolutionaries in St. Petersburg formed a soviet (council) called the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. Nicholas then granted the Duma the power to pass or reject all proposed laws. Many Russians were satisfied with this action, but others were not. The revolution continued, especially in Moscow, where the army crushed a serious uprising in December.

Each of the first two Dumas, which met in 1906 and 1907, was dissolved after a few months. The Dumas could not work with Nicholas and his high-ranking officials, who refused to give up much power. Nicholas illegally changed the election law and made the selection of Duma candidates less democratic. The peasants and workers were allowed far fewer representatives in the Duma than the upper classes. The third Duma served from 1907 to 1912, and the fourth Duma met from 1912 to 1917. During this period, Russia made important advances in the arts, education, farming, and industry.

World War I.

By the time World War I began in 1914, Europe was divided into two tense armed camps. On one side was the Triple Entente (Triple Agreement), consisting of Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. Russia and France had agreed in 1894 to defend each other against attack. France and the United Kingdom had signed the Entente Cordiale (Friendly Understanding) in 1904, and Russia had signed a similar agreement with the United Kingdom in 1907. The Triple Entente developed from these treaties. Opposing the Triple Entente was the Triple Alliance, formed in 1882 by Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy.

On Aug. 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. Soon afterward, Russia changed the German-sounding name of St. Petersburg to Petrograd. German troops crushed the Russian army at Tannenberg, in East Prussia. However, the Russians defeated an Austrian army in the Battles of Lemberg in the Galicia region of Austria-Hungary, near present-day Lviv, Ukraine.

In 1915, Austrian and German forces drove back the Russians. The next year, the Russians attacked along a 70-mile (113-kilometer) front in Galicia. They advanced about 50 miles (80 kilometers). Russian troops moved into the Carpathian Mountains in 1917, but the Germans pushed them back. For more information on Russia’s role in the war, see World War I.

The February Revolution.

During World War I, the Russian economy could not meet the needs of both the soldiers and the people at home. The railroads carried military supplies and could not serve the cities. The people suffered severe shortages of food, fuel, and housing. Russian troops at the front were loyal, but the untrained soldiers behind the fighting lines began to question the war. They knew they would probably be sent to the front and be killed. The soldiers and civilians behind the lines grew increasingly dissatisfied.

By the end of 1916, almost all educated Russians opposed the czar. Nicholas had removed many capable executives from high government offices and replaced them with weak, unpopular officials. He was accused of crippling the war effort by such acts. Many Russians blamed his action on the influence of Grigori Rasputin, adviser to the czar and the czarina. The royal couple believed that Rasputin was a holy man who was saving their sick son’s life. In December 1916, a group of nobles murdered Rasputin. But the officials who supposedly had been appointed through his influence remained.

In March 1917, the people of Russia revolted. (The month was February in the old Russian calendar, which was replaced in 1918.) Violent riots and strikes over shortages of bread and coal accompanied the uprising in Petrograd, the capital of Russia. (Petrograd was known as St. Petersburg until 1914, was renamed Leningrad in 1924, and again became St. Petersburg in 1991.) Nicholas ordered the Duma to dissolve itself, but it defied the czar and set up a provisional (temporary) government. Nicholas had lost all political support, and he gave up the throne on March 15. Nicholas and his family were then imprisoned. Bolshevik revolutionaries shot the czar and his family to death in July 1918.

Many soviets were established in Russia at the same time as the provisional government was formed. The soviets rivaled the provisional government. Workers and soldiers tried to seize power in Petrograd in July, but the attempt failed.

The October Revolution.

In August 1917, General Lavr Kornilov tried to curb the growing power of the soviets. But the attempt failed, and the Russian masses became increasingly radical. On November 7 (October 25 in the old Russian calendar), workers, soldiers, and sailors led by the Bolsheviks took over the Winter Palace, a former royal residence that had become the headquarters of the provisional government. They overthrew the provisional government and formed a new government headed by Lenin. Lenin immediately withdrew Russia from World War I. The new government soon took over Russia’s industries and also seized most of the peasants’ farm products.

In 1918, the Bolsheviks made Moscow the capital of Russia. They also changed the name of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party to the Russian Communist Party. This name was later changed to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. See Communism.

Civil war and the formation of the U.S.S.R.

From 1918 to 1920, civil war raged between the Communists and the anti-Communists over control of Russia. The anti-Communists received support from several other countries, including Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Nevertheless, the Communists defeated their opponents. They also established Communist rule in Georgia, Ukraine, eastern Armenia, Belarus, and central Asia. The civil war contributed to the increasing discontent among the Russian people.

In 1921, peasant uprisings and workers’ strikes broke out in opposition to Bolshevik policies. That same year, Lenin established a New Economic Policy to strengthen Russia. Under this policy, the government controlled the most important aspects of the economy, including banking, foreign trade, heavy industry, and transportation. But small businesses could control their own operations, and peasants could keep their farm products.

In December 1922, the Communist government created a new nation called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). It consisted of four republics—the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Byelorussia (formerly Belarus and now again known by that name), Transcaucasia, and Ukraine. By late 1940, Transcaucasia had been divided into Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, and 10 other republics had been established. The new republics included what are now Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova (then Moldavia), Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Stalin.

Lenin died in 1924. Joseph Stalin, who had been general secretary of the Communist Party since 1922, rapidly gained power. He defeated his rivals one by one. By 1929, Stalin had become dictator of the Soviet Union.

In the late 1920’s, Stalin began a socialist economic program. It emphasized the development of heavy industry and the combining of privately owned farms into large, government-run farms. Many citizens of the Soviet Union opposed Stalin’s policies.

In the mid-1930’s, Stalin started a program of terror called the Great Purge. His secret police arrested millions of people. Most of the prisoners were shot or sent to prison labor camps. Many of those arrested had helped Stalin rise to power. Stalin thus eliminated all possible threats to his power and tightened his hold over the Soviet Union.

World War II.

By the late 1930’s, German dictator Adolf Hitler was ready to conquer Europe. In August 1939, the U.S.S.R. and Germany signed a nonaggression pact, a treaty agreeing that neither nation would attack the other. In September, German forces invaded Poland from the west. The Soviet Union’s forces quickly occupied the eastern part of Poland.

In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and began a rapid advance into the country. The turning point of the war in the Soviet Union was the Soviet defeat of the Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in 1943. Soviet troops then drove the Germans back out of the country and across eastern Europe. They attacked Berlin in April 1945. Berlin fell to the Soviets on May 2, and German troops surrendered to the Allies five days later.

The Soviet Union suffered more military casualties than all the other Allied countries combined. Russians call the Soviet Union’s fight against the Germans the Great Patriotic War.

For more information on Russia’s role in the war, see World War II.

The Cold War.

After World War II ended, the Soviet Union extended the influence of Communism into Eastern Europe. By early 1948, several Eastern European countries had become Soviet satellites (countries controlled by the Soviet Union). The satellites were Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and—later—East Germany. The U.S.S.R. also influenced Communist regimes in Albania and Yugoslavia. It cut off nearly all contact between its satellites and the West. Mutual distrust and suspicion between East and West developed into a rivalry that became known as the Cold War. The Cold War shaped the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and of many Western countries until the late 1980’s.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953. In September of that year, Nikita S. Khrushchev became the head of the Communist Party. In 1958, he also became premier of the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev eased the terror that had characterized Stalin’s dictatorship and relaxed some of the restrictions on communication, trade, and travel between East and West. He also improved the Soviet people’s standard of living. However, the U.S.S.R. continued working to expand its influence in non-Communist countries. Khrushchev improved Soviet relations with the West, but many of his other policies failed.

In 1964, the highest-ranking Communists overthrew Khrushchev. Leonid I. Brezhnev became Communist Party head, and Aleksei N. Kosygin became premier. Brezhnev and Kosygin increased the production of consumer goods and the construction of housing, and they expanded Soviet influence in Africa.

By the mid-1970’s, Brezhnev was the most powerful Soviet leader. He sought to ease tensions between East and West, a policy that became known as détente. However, détente began to collapse in the late 1970’s. Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States worsened over such issues as Soviet violations of human rights, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and an increase in the number of nuclear weapons held by both the Soviet Union and the United States.

The rise of Gorbachev.

In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev became head of the Communist Party. Gorbachev instituted many changes in the U.S.S.R., including increased freedom of expression in politics, literature, and the arts. He worked to improve relations between the Soviet Union and the West and to reduce government control over the Soviet economy.

In 1989, the U.S.S.R. held its first contested elections for the newly created Congress of People’s Deputies. The following year, the government voted to allow non-Communist political parties in the Soviet Union. Many Communist Party members and other Soviet officials opposed Gorbachev’s reforms. But in March 1990, Gorbachev was elected by the Congress of People’s Deputies to the newly created office of president of the Soviet Union.

The breakup of the U.S.S.R.

During the late 1980’s, people in many parts of the Soviet Union increased their demands for greater freedom from the central government. In June 1990, the Russian republic declared that laws passed by its legislature took precedence over laws passed by the central government. By the end of the year, each of the other 14 Soviet republics had made similar declarations.

In July 1991, Gorbachev and the leaders of 10 republics agreed to sign a treaty giving the republics a large amount of self-government. Five of the republics were scheduled to sign the treaty on August 20. But on August 19, conservative Communist Party leaders staged a coup against Gorbachev’s government. They imprisoned Gorbachev and his family in their vacation home. The president of the Russian republic, Boris N. Yeltsin, led popular opposition to the coup. The coup collapsed on August 21. Gorbachev then regained his office as president but resigned as head of the Communist Party.

With the coup’s collapse, the republics renewed their demands for more self-government. In September 1991, an interim government was established to rule until a new union treaty and constitution could be written and approved. This government included a State Council, made up of Gorbachev and the leaders of the republics.

On Dec. 8, 1991, Yeltsin and the presidents of Belarus and Ukraine announced the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.). They declared that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and invited the remaining republics to join the commonwealth. The members would be independent countries tied by economic and defense links. Most of the republics joined the C.I.S.

Yeltsin took control of what remained of the central government of the Soviet Union, including the Kremlin. On Dec. 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The new nation.

With the end of the Soviet Union, the Russian republic resumed its course as an independent nation. The breakup of the Soviet Union helped to ease remaining tensions between East and West.

In 1992, the Russian government slashed military spending and reduced the number of people employed in the armed forces. These cutbacks forced large numbers of former military personnel to find homes and jobs as civilians. That same year, the other former Soviet republics with nuclear weapons on their lands—Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—agreed to eliminate all nuclear weapons on their territories within seven years. By the end of 1996, the three countries had turned over their nuclear weapons to Russia.

Russia had to establish new relationships with the C.I.S. members. Some Russian leaders wanted the country to take a leading role. But the smaller states feared domination by Russia because of its size and power.

Russia also faced the challenges of setting up new economic and governmental systems. The government ended price controls. The lifting of controls caused prices to soar and resulted in a lower standard of living for the Russian people. President Yeltsin and his government took steps to increase private ownership of businesses. However, the process left a small number of wealthy Russians in control of many of the country’s largest companies.

Opposition to Yeltsin’s economic policies grew in parliament, which included many Communist Party members and former Soviet Union leaders. In a referendum held in April 1993, a majority of the voters supported Yeltsin and his economic policies. Opposition to Yeltsin in parliament continued, however. In September, Yeltsin suspended Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi, who had become a leader of the anti-Yeltsin group. Later that month, Yeltsin dissolved parliament and called for new parliamentary elections in December. Parliament, in turn, voted to remove Yeltsin from office and to make Rutskoi acting president.

Rutskoi and many other foes of Yeltsin barricaded themselves in the parliament building in Moscow. At Yeltsin’s order, police and forces of the internal affairs ministry blockaded the building, known as the White House. In October 1993, anti-Yeltsin crowds rioted in Moscow and tried to break up the blockade. The next day, Yeltsin ordered the military to take control of the White House. Rutskoi and other leaders of the movement against Yeltsin were arrested.

The elections Yeltsin had called for took place in December 1993. Russia’s voters elected a new parliament and approved a new constitution. The new document formally defined the powers of the president and of the parliament. In February 1994, the new State Duma granted amnesty both to those who revolted against Yeltsin in 1993 and to those who led the failed coup in 1991. Yeltsin won a second presidential term in 1996.

In 1991, the government of Chechnya, a region in southwestern Russia, demanded independence. In 1992, violence broke out between the Chechen government and citizens who wanted the region to remain part of Russia. In December 1994, Russia sent troops against the separatist forces, and serious fighting resulted. A cease-fire ended the fighting in August 1996. In May 1997, Yeltsin and the Chechen leader signed a peace treaty.

In 1998, Russia began to face severe economic problems. In March, Yeltsin abruptly dismissed his cabinet, including Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin. He forced parliament to accept young, reform-minded Sergei Kiriyenko as prime minister. In August, Yeltsin dismissed Kiriyenko and tried to bring back Chernomyrdin. But parliament forced Yeltsin to nominate another candidate. In September 1998, parliament approved Yevgeny M. Primakov, the minister of foreign affairs, as the new prime minister. In October, Yeltsin, who had been in poor health for some time, turned over most of his duties to Primakov. Russia’s economic crisis continued.

Conflict in Chechnya.

In May 1999, Yeltsin abruptly dismissed Primakov and the rest of the cabinet members. Yeltsin appointed the minister of internal affairs, Sergei V. Stepashin, as prime minister. In August, Yeltsin replaced Stepashin with Vladimir V. Putin, former head of Russia’s domestic intelligence service.

Also in August 1999, Islamic militants who wanted to unite Chechnya and the neighboring republic of Dagestan seized several towns in Dagestan. Russia invaded Chechnya to oppose the rebellion. Russian attacks heavily damaged Chechnya’s cities and killed many civilians. Many nations protested Russia’s handling of the conflict.

Russian forces gained control of Chechnya’s main cities by mid-2000, but the rebellion continued. The rebels retreated to mountain bases and launched surprise attacks on Russian forces. Chechen terrorists conducted bomb attacks in Moscow and southwest Russia, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians.

In parliamentary elections in December 1999, the Communist Party again won the largest number of seats in the State Duma. Unity, a political group supported by Prime Minister Putin, won the second highest number of seats. On Dec. 31, 1999, Yeltsin resigned and appointed Putin as acting president. In presidential elections in March 2000, Russians formally elected Putin.

Putin’s first two terms.

Early in Putin’s presidency, Russia began to improve its relations with Europe and the United States. In 2002, Russia entered into a special partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance that had been formed to oppose the Soviet Union.

In October 2002, Chechen terrorists seized a theater in Moscow and held about 700 audience members, actors, and theater personnel as hostages. They demanded a withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. Russian security forces stormed the theater and killed or captured the terrorists. However, over 100 of the hostages were killed by a chemical weapon—a gas—that the security forces used in the raid.

Putin greatly strengthened the central government. He restricted political expression and increased state control over the media. His government sometimes clashed with Russia’s oligarchs, wealthy individuals who controlled major Russian businesses. In 2003, for example, the businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky criticized state corruption. The government charged him with financial crimes. The government then charged Yukos Oil Company, Khodorkovsky’s leading enterprise, with billions of dollars in unpaid taxes. Many observers believed the Russian government took these actions to put an end to Khodorkovsky’s growing political power. In 2004, the government auctioned off a significant portion of Yukos. In 2005, Khodorkovsky was convicted of most of the charges brought against him. He was imprisoned until 2013, when Putin pardoned him. Khodorkovsky went into exile in London.

Islamic rebels continued to carry out raids and terrorist attacks, especially in southwest Russia. Putin was reelected as president in March 2004. That September, Chechen terrorists seized a school in Beslan, a town in southwest Russia, and held over 1,000 hostages, many of them children. On the third day of the crisis, a bomb in the school exploded, and Russian security forces stormed the school. The resulting chaos left over 300 hostages dead and hundreds more injured. Russian forces killed about 30 of the terrorists and captured 1 alive.

International conflict.

In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev succeeded Putin as president. Medvedev selected Putin to serve as his prime minister. Many observers believed Putin was still unofficially in control.

In August 2008, Russia and Georgia clashed over control of South Ossetia, a region in north-central Georgia, and Russian troops entered Georgia. Russia announced that it recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another region of Georgia, as independent. The United States and other Western countries, however, continued to recognize the areas as part of Georgia. In September, European Union observers arrived in Georgia to monitor a withdrawal of Russian troops from the country. However, Russia kept troops stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In 2009, the Russian government ended its antiterrorist operations in Chechnya, claiming to have stabilized the situation. However, some critics accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of using terrorist tactics to silence his opponents.

In 2012, Putin was again elected to the presidency. Election observers noted widespread irregularities, including reports of ballot tampering and people voting multiple times in different locations. Putin chose Medvedev to serve as his prime minister.

In early March 2014, Russian armed forces seized the Crimean Peninsula, which had been part of Ukraine since 1954. Later that month, the Crimean parliament voted to withdraw from Ukraine. Shortly afterward, Putin signed legislation annexing Crimea. Ukraine’s government and many of its allies considered these moves illegal. In reaction to the situation in Crimea, a number of countries introduced economic sanctions against Russian interests. In April, armed pro-Russian separatists took control of government buildings throughout eastern Ukraine. On April 17, representatives of the European Union, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States met in Geneva, Switzerland. The representatives signed an agreement calling for protesters to disarm and leave occupied buildings. However, Russia and Ukraine soon accused each other of violating the agreement. Fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian troops continued in the following months.

On July 17, a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet crashed in rebel-held eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people. Western officials believed it was shot down by pro-Russian rebels. Russian officials claimed the Ukrainian government was responsible for the disaster. As international tensions remained high, several Western governments imposed sanctions on Russia, targeting the country’s oil and gas industries. The sanctions hit Russia’s economy hard, sending the country into a recession. In February 2015, representatives from the French and German governments negotiated another cease-fire. Both Russia and Ukraine agreed to withdraw heavy weapons from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, but fighting continued. In July, Russia vetoed an attempt to establish a United Nations tribunal to prosecute those found responsible for downing the Malaysian Airlines jet. In September 2016, a Dutch-led investigation team issued a report concluding that the jet had been shot down by a missile supplied by the Russian military and fired from an area of Ukraine that was under the control of Russian-backed separatist rebels. The Russian government and the rebels continued to deny involvement in the incident. In 2022, a Dutch court convicted two Russian security-force officers and the Ukrainian leader of a separatist military unit of murder for their roles in shooting down the plane.

In September 2015, Russia began launching airstrikes in Syria during that country’s civil war. Targets included terrorists and other rebel opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russia supported Assad in the following years, as civil war in Syria continued.

In July 2017, the United States Congress passed sanctions against Russia for interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections. U.S. intelligence agencies had produced evidence of thousands of Russia-based cyberattacks on U.S. voting systems and political campaigns. The agencies also reported evidence that groups tied to Russian intelligence services had hacked into Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers and selectively released material to the public. The hacking was associated with Russia-led campaigns to use social media to influence voters and increase divisive partisan attitudes. In mid-2018, U.S. prosecutors indicted several Russian nationals for hacking into the DNC computers.

A number of other nations have also produced evidence of Russian cyberattacks and social media campaigns to influence or undermine their election processes. Russia has denied the accusations.

In 2018, Putin was elected to a fourth term as Russia’s president. In November, Russia seized three Ukrainian ships and imprisoned 24 Ukrainian seamen. Russia claimed the ships, which had passed from the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait to the Sea of Azov, had trespassed into Russian waters. Ukraine appealed to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a court that handles disputes at sea under a treaty sponsored by the United Nations. In May 2019, the tribunal ruled that Russia should release the ships and crewmen. However, the crewmen were only released the following September, as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.

In January 2020, Putin proposed several changes to the Russian Constitution that would alter the roles of the president, the prime minister, and some other offices in the executive branch of the government. Medvedev then resigned as prime minister, and Putin named Mikhail Mishustin, who had been head of Russia’s tax service, as the new prime minister. Among Putin’s proposed constitutional amendments was a term limit change allowing him to run for additional terms as president in 2024 and 2030. Russia’s legislature approved the amendments in March 2020. The Russian people approved them in a public referendum in July.

Also in 2020, Russia faced a public-health and economic crisis as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (worldwide epidemic). COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus. The first case in Russia was diagnosed in late January 2020. To curb the spread of the disease, restrictions were placed on travel and business activities. These restrictions, together with a drop in oil prices in early 2020, hurt Russia’s economy. In December, the government began administering a COVID-19 vaccine developed in Russia. Nevertheless, Russia experienced a spike in cases in mid-2021, and another surge in early 2022. As of early 2023, more than 20 million people in Russia had been infected with the coronavirus, and nearly 400,000 died from COVID-19.

Invasion of Ukraine.

Putin had long sought to reassert Russian influence internationally, especially in the nations of central Asia and eastern Europe that had been part of the Soviet Union or allied with it. In 2021, Russia began massing troops near the borders of Ukraine. By January 2022, more than 100,000 Russian troops were positioned near Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus, Russia’s ally, for what Russia said were military drills. Meanwhile, Putin demanded that Ukraine reduce its military forces, that NATO reduce its military presence in eastern Europe, and that both guarantee that Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO. Ukraine had earlier expressed an interest in joining NATO. Ukraine and the NATO member nations refused to let Russia dictate their policies. The United States and other NATO members offered instead to negotiate on Russian concerns about weapons and troops based in Europe. They also warned against Russian military intervention in Ukraine.

By late February, Russia had more than 150,000 troops positioned near Ukraine’s northern, eastern, and southern borders. On February 21, Putin announced that Russia officially recognized as independent the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were claimed by the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. This recognition included not only the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk held by separatist forces at the time, but also the areas claimed by the separatists but controlled by Ukrainian government forces. Putin then authorized Russian troops to be sent to the regions to “maintain peace.” The European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and a number of other nations began to impose financial sanctions on Russian leaders and Russian financial institutions. They warned that harsher sanctions would follow if Russia sent any troops into Ukraine.

On February 23, the leaders of the separatist regions Putin had recognized as independent asked for Russian military assistance. The following morning, Putin announced that Russia was undertaking what he called a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Russian forces immediately invaded Ukraine from three sides. Russian missiles and bombers struck major cities and other targets throughout Ukraine. Nations around the world condemned the Russian aggression. As the invasion continued, many nations imposed increasingly strict sanctions against Russia and offered humanitarian aid and military supplies to Ukraine.

Russia’s initial broad attack failed to take Ukraine’s capital—Kyiv—or overthrow the Ukrainian government. By late spring, the Russian forces increasingly focused their attacks on capturing the highly industrialized and mineral-rich lands of eastern Ukraine and territory along the southern coast. The invasion created a humanitarian crisis that displaced nearly a third of the Ukrainian population within the next six months and killed thousands of civilians.

In late September, Putin declared that Russia was annexing four Ukrainian regions that were partially held by Russian troops, based on a referendum conducted by Russia in the areas under its military occupation. The regions were Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Together, the four regions covered a broad band of territory extending along Ukraine’s border with Russia in the east and then curving southwest along the Sea of Azov to the area north of the Crimean Peninsula. Other nations did not recognize the referendum as a free vote, or Putin’s claim to have annexed the regions as legal. In November, Russian forces increased their bombing of electric power stations and other infrastructure that civilians in cities throughout Ukraine would need during the winter.

Intense fighting continued into 2023. The battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the winter and spring of 2023 devastated the city and resulted in the deaths of many Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. In the summer of 2023, Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive (attempt to push back) against Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine. The counteroffensive made slow progress against the entrenched Russians, and by the fall of 2023 it was considered to have failed.

On June 23, 2023, as the Ukrainian counteroffensive was underway, the Wagner Group—a private military company backed by Russia and fighting in Ukraine—launched a rebellion against the Russian government and military. The group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had grown frustrated with how Russia’s military leadership had handled the war. He blamed them for Russia’s failure to defeat Ukraine. The rebellion ended a day later. On August 23, Prigozhin and other Wagner Group leaders were killed in a plane crash in western Russia. Many observers believed that the Russian government was responsible for the crash. The government denied any responsibility.

In February 2024, Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader and leading critic of Putin, died in a prison in Siberia at the age of 47. The Russian government claimed Navalny died of natural causes, but many of his supporters believed he was murdered. Leaders of many countries blamed Putin and the Russian government for Navalny’s death. Nevertheless, Putin was elected to a fifth term as president in March.

Also in March 2024, terrorists attacked people attending a rock concert at Crocus City Hall in Moscow. Over 140 people were killed and hundreds more were injured. The Islamic State, a terrorist group, claimed responsibility for the attack. American and French intelligence services confirmed the group’s responsibility. But the Russian government claimed without evidence that Ukraine had been behind the attack. The Ukrainian government denied any responsibility.