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<\/a>The East Slavs<\/a> emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The medieval state of Rus’<\/a> arose in the 9th century. In 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus’ ultimately disintegrated until it was finally reunified by the Grand Duchy of Moscow<\/a> in the 15th century. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire<\/a>, the third-largest empire in history. Following the Russian Revolution<\/a>, the Russian SFSR<\/a> became the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world’s first constitutionally socialist state. The Soviet Union played a decisive role<\/a> in the Allied victory in World War II, and emerged as a superpower and rival to the United States during the Cold War. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world’s first human-made satellite<\/a> and the launching of the first human in space<\/a>. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union<\/a> in 1991, the Russian SFSR reconstituted itself as the Russian Federation. In the aftermath of the constitutional crisis of 1993<\/a>, a new constitution was adopted, and Russia has since been governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Vladimir Putin<\/a> has dominated Russia’s political system since 2000, and his government has been accused of authoritarianism, numerous human rights abuses, and corruption.<\/p>\n Russia is a great power, and is considered a potential superpower. It is ranked very high in the Human Development Index, with a universal healthcare system, and a free university education. Russia’s economy is the world’s eleventh-largest by nominal GDP and the sixth-largest by PPP. It is a recognized nuclear-weapons state, possessing the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, with the world’s second-most powerful military, and the fourth-highest military expenditure. Russia’s extensive mineral and energy resources are the world’s largest, and it is one of the leading producers of oil and natural gas globally. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council<\/a>, a member of the G20<\/a>, the SCO<\/a>, the Council of Europe<\/a>, the APEC<\/a>, the OSCE<\/a>, the IIB<\/a> and the WTO<\/a>, as well as the leading member of the CIS<\/a>, the CSTO<\/a>, and the EAEU<\/a>. Russia is also home to the ninth-greatest number of UNESCO<\/a> World Heritage Sites.<\/a><\/p>\n Nomadic pastoralism developed in the Pontic-Caspian steppe<\/a> beginning in the Chalcolithic<\/a>. In classical antiquity, the Pontic Steppe was known as Scythia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Beginning in the 8th century BC, Ancient Greek traders brought their civilization to the trade emporiums located in the Russian cities of Tanais<\/a> and Phanagoria<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the 3rd to 4th centuries AD, the Gothic kingdom of Oium<\/a> existed in Southern Russia, which was later overrun by Huns<\/a>. Between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD, the Bosporan Kingdom<\/a>, which was a Hellenistic polity that succeeded the Greek colonies, was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes such as the Huns and Eurasian Avars<\/a>. A Turkic<\/a> people, the Khazars<\/a>, ruled the lower Volga basin steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas until the 10th century.<\/p>\n The ancestors of modern Russians are the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes<\/a>, one of the largest wetlands in Europe. The East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia in two waves: one moving from Kiev<\/a> toward present-day Suzdal<\/a> and Murom<\/a> and another from Polotsk<\/a> toward Novgorod<\/a> and Rostov<\/a>. From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in Western Russia, and assimilated the native Finno-Ugric peoples<\/a>, including the Merya<\/a>, the Muromians<\/a>, and the Meshchera<\/a>.<\/p>\n The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of Varangians<\/a>, the Vikings<\/a> who ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black<\/a> and Caspian Seas<\/a>. According to the Primary Chronicle<\/a>, a Varangian from the Rus’ people<\/a>, named Rurik<\/a>, was elected ruler of Novgorod<\/a> in 862. In 882, his successor Oleg<\/a> ventured south and conquered Kiev, which had been previously paying tribute to the Khazars. Oleg, Rurik’s son Igor<\/a> and Igor’s son Sviatoslav<\/a> subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar Khaganate<\/a> and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium<\/a> and Persia<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the 10th to 11th centuries, Kievan Rus’ became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great<\/a> (980\u20131015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise<\/a> (1019\u20131054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Kipchaks<\/a> and the Pechenegs<\/a>, caused a massive migration of the East Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north, particularly to the area known as Zalesye<\/a>; which led to intermingling with the native Volga Finnic<\/a> tribes.<\/p>\n The age of feudalism and decentralization had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of the Rurikid Dynasty<\/a> that ruled Kievan Rus’ collectively. Kiev’s dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal<\/a> in the north-east, Novgorod Republic<\/a> in the north-west and Galicia-Volhynia<\/a> in the south-west.<\/p>\n Ultimately Kievan Rus’ disintegrated, with the final blow being the Mongol invasion of 1237\u201340<\/a>, that resulted in the destruction of Kiev, and the death of about half the population of Rus’. The invaders, later known as Tatars<\/a>, formed the state of the Golden Horde<\/a>, which pillaged the Russian principalities and ruled the southern and central expanses of Russia for over two centuries.<\/p>\n Galicia-Volhynia was eventually assimilated by the Kingdom of Poland<\/a>, while the Novgorod Republic and Mongol-dominated Vladimir-Suzdal, two regions on the periphery of Kiev, established the basis for the modern Russian nation. The Novgorod Republic escaped Mongol occupation and together with Pskov<\/a> retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke; they were largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the country. Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky<\/a>, Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva<\/a> in 1240, as well as the Germanic crusaders<\/a> in the Battle of the Ice<\/a> in 1242.<\/p>\n The most powerful state to eventually arise after the destruction of Kievan Rus’ was the Grand Duchy of Moscow<\/a>, initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal. While still under the domain of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the Central Rus’ in the early 14th century, gradually becoming the leading force in the process of the Rus’ lands’ reunification and expansion of Russia. Moscow’s last rival, the Novgorod Republic, prospered as the chief fur trade center and the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League<\/a>.<\/p>\n Times remained difficult, with frequent Mongol-Tatar raids. Agriculture suffered from the beginning of the Little Ice Age<\/a>. As in the rest of Europe, plague was a frequent occurrence between 1350 and 1490. However, because of the lower population density and better hygiene\u2014widespread practicing of banya<\/a>, a wet steam bath\u2014the death rate from plague was not as severe as in Western Europe, and population numbers recovered by 1500.<\/p>\n Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy<\/a> of Moscow and helped by the Russian Orthodox Church, the united army of Russian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo<\/a> in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed the surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver<\/a> and Novgorod.<\/p>\n Ivan III (“the Great”)<\/a> finally threw off the control of the Golden Horde and consolidated the whole of Central and Northern Rus’ under Moscow’s dominion. He was also the first to take the title “Grand Duke of all the Russias”. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453<\/a>, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina<\/a>, the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI<\/a>, and made the Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Russia’s, coat-of-arms.<\/p>\n In development of the Third Rome<\/a> ideas, the Grand Duke Ivan IV (the “Terrible”)<\/a> was officially crowned first Tsar of Russia<\/a> in 1547. The Tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik<\/a> of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (Zemsky Sobor<\/a>) and introduced local self-management into the rural regions.<\/p>\n During his long reign, Ivan the Terrible nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates (parts of the disintegrated Golden Horde): Kazan<\/a> and Astrakhan<\/a> along the Volga River<\/a>, and the Siberian Khanate<\/a> in southwestern Siberia. Thus, by the end of the 16th century, Russia was transformed into a transcontinental state.<\/p>\n However, the Tsardom was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War<\/a> against the coalition of Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade. At the same time, the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate<\/a>, the only remaining successor to the Golden Horde, continued to raid Southern Russia. In an effort to restore the Volga khanates, Crimeans and their Ottoman allies invaded central Russia<\/a> and were even able to burn down parts of Moscow in 1571<\/a>. But in the next year the large invading army was thoroughly defeated by Russians in the Battle of Molodi<\/a>, forever eliminating the threat of an Ottoman\u2013Crimean expansion into Russia. The slave raids of Crimeans, however, did not cease until the late 17th century though the construction of new fortification lines across Southern Russia, such as the Great Abatis Line<\/a>, constantly narrowed the area accessible to incursions.<\/p>\n The death of Ivan’s sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik Dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the famine of 1601\u201303<\/a>, led to a civil war, the rule of pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles<\/a> in the early 17th century. The Polish\u2013Lithuanian Commonwealth<\/a> occupied parts of Russia, including Moscow. In 1612, the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by two national heroes, merchant Kuzma Minin<\/a> and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky<\/a>. The Romanov Dynasty<\/a> acceded to the throne in 1613 by the decision of Zemsky Sobor, and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis.<\/p>\n Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of Cossacks<\/a>. In 1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks<\/a> in rebellion against Poland-Lithuania during the Khmelnytsky Uprising<\/a> in reaction to the social and religious oppression they had been suffering under Polish rule. In 1654, the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky<\/a>, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian Tsar, Aleksey I<\/a>. Aleksey’s acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War<\/a>. Finally, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper River<\/a>, leaving the western part, right-bank Ukraine<\/a>, under Polish rule and the eastern part (Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev<\/a>) under Russian rule. Later, in 1670\u201371, the Don Cossacks<\/a> led by Stenka Razin<\/a> initiated a major uprising in the Volga Region, but the Tsar’s troops were successful in defeating the rebels.<\/p>\n In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonization of the huge territories of Siberia was led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian River Routes<\/a>, and by the mid-17th century, there were Russian settlements in Eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula<\/a>, along the Amur River<\/a>, and on the Pacific coast. In 1648, Fedot Popov<\/a> and Semyon Dezhnyov<\/a>, two Russian explorers, discovered the Bering Strait<\/a>; which led to the Russians becoming the first Europeans to sail to North America.<\/p>\n Under Peter the Great<\/a>, Russia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721, and became recognized as a global power. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War<\/a>, forcing it to cede West Karelia<\/a> and Ingria<\/a> (two regions lost by Russia in the Time of Troubles), as well as Estland<\/a> and Livland<\/a>, securing Russia’s access to the sea and sea trade. On the Baltic Sea, Peter founded a new capital named Saint Petersburg. Later, his reforms brought considerable Western European cultural influences to Russia.<\/p>\n The reign of Peter I’s daughter Elizabeth<\/a> in 1741\u201362 saw Russia’s participation in the Seven Years’ War (1756\u201363)<\/a>. During this conflict, Russia annexed East Prussia<\/a> for a while and even took Berlin. However, upon Elizabeth’s death, all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom of Prussia<\/a> by pro-Prussian Peter III of Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Catherine II (“the Great”)<\/a>, who ruled in 1762\u201396, presided over the Age of Russian Enlightenment<\/a>. She extended Russian political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and incorporated most of its territories into Russia during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. In the south, after the successful Russo-Turkish Wars<\/a> against Ottoman Turkey, Catherine advanced Russia’s boundary to the Black Sea, defeating the Crimean Khanate. As a result of victories over Qajar Iran<\/a> through the Russo-Persian Wars<\/a>, by the first half of the 19th century, Russia also made significant territorial gains in Transcaucasia<\/a> and the North Caucasus<\/a>. Catherine’s successor, her son Paul<\/a>, was unstable and focused predominantly on domestic issues. Following his short reign, Catherine’s strategy was continued with Alexander I’s<\/a> (1801\u201325) wresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia<\/a> from the Ottomans in 1812. At the same time, Russians became the first Europeans to colonize Alaska<\/a> and founded settlements in California, such as Fort Ross<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 1803\u20131806, the first Russian circumnavigation<\/a> was made, later followed by other notable Russian sea exploration voyages. In 1820, a Russian expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica.<\/a><\/p>\n In alliances with various other European countries, Russia fought against Napoleon’s France. The French invasion of Russia<\/a> at the height of Napoleon’s power in 1812 reached Moscow, but eventually failed miserably as the obstinate resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of invaders, in which more than 95% of the pan-European Grande Arm\u00e9e perished. Led by Mikhail Kutuzov<\/a> and Barclay de Tolly<\/a>, the Russian army ousted Napoleon from the country and drove throughout Europe in the war of the Sixth Coalition<\/a>, finally entering Paris. Alexander I headed Russia’s delegation at the Congress of Vienna that defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe.<\/p>\n The officers of the Napoleonic Wars brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia with them and attempted to curtail the tsar’s powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825. At the end of the conservative reign of Nicolas I<\/a> (1825\u201355), a zenith period of Russia’s power and influence in Europe was disrupted by defeat in the Crimean War<\/a>. Between 1847 and 1851, about one million people died of Asiatic cholera.<\/p>\n Nicholas’s successor Alexander II<\/a> (1855\u201381) enacted significant changes in the country, including the emancipation reform of 1861<\/a>. These Great Reforms spurred industrialization and modernized the Russian army, which had successfully liberated Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in the 1877\u201378 Russo-Turkish War<\/a>.<\/p>\n The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Russia. Alexander II was killed in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists and the reign of his son Alexander III<\/a> (1881\u201394) was less liberal but more peaceful. The last Russian Emperor, Nicholas II<\/a> (1894\u20131917), was unable to prevent the events of the Russian Revolution of 1905<\/a>, triggered by the unsuccessful Russo-Japanese War<\/a> and the demonstration incident known as Bloody Sunday<\/a>. The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms (Russian Constitution of 1906), including granting the freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalization of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma of the Russian Empire. The Stolypin agrarian reform led to a massive peasant migration and settlement into Siberia. More than four million settlers arrived in that region between 1906 and 1914.<\/p>\n In 1914, Russia entered World War I in response to Austria-Hungary’s<\/a> declaration of war on Russia’s ally Serbia<\/a>, and fought across multiple fronts while isolated from its Triple Entente<\/a> allies. In 1916, the Brusilov Offensive<\/a> of the Russian Army almost completely destroyed the military of Austria-Hungary. However, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, high casualties, and rumors of corruption and treason. All this formed the climate for the Russian Revolution of 1917<\/a>, carried out in two major acts.<\/p>\n The February Revolution<\/a> forced Nicholas II to abdicate; he and his family were imprisoned and later executed in Yekaterinburg<\/a> during the Russian Civil War<\/a>. The monarchy was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government. On 1 September (14), 1917, upon a decree of the Provisional Government, the Russian Republic was proclaimed. On 6 January (19), 1918, the Russian Constituent Assembly declared Russia a democratic federal republic (thus ratifying the Provisional Government’s decision). The next day the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.<\/p>\n An alternative socialist establishment co-existed, the Petrograd Soviet<\/a>, wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called Soviets. The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country instead of resolving it. Eventually, the October Revolution<\/a>, led by Bolshevik<\/a> leader Vladimir Lenin<\/a>, overthrew the Provisional Government and gave full governing power to the Soviets, leading to the creation of the world’s first socialist state.<\/p>\n Following the October Revolution, the Russian Civil War broke out between the anti-Communist White movement and the new Soviet regime with its Red Army. Bolshevist Russia lost its Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic, and Finnish territories by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk<\/a> that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers of World War I. The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-Communist forces. In the meantime, both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror<\/a> and White Terror<\/a>. By the end of the civil war, Russia’s economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged. There were an estimated 7\u201312 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians. Millions became White \u00e9migr\u00e9s<\/a>, and the Russian famine of 1921\u201322<\/a> claimed up to five million victims.<\/p>\n On 30 December 1922, Lenin and his aides formed the Soviet Union<\/a>, by merging the Russian SFSR<\/a> with the Ukrainian<\/a>, Byelorussian<\/a>, and the Transcaucasian SFSR<\/a>. Out of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, the largest in size and population was the Russian SFSR, which dominated the union for its entire history politically, culturally, and economically.<\/p>\n Following Lenin’s death in 1924, a troika was designated to take charge. Eventually Joseph Stalin<\/a>, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country’s dictator by the 1930s. Leon Trotsky<\/a>, the main proponent of world revolution, was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, and Stalin’s idea of Socialism in One Country became the official line. The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge<\/a>, a period of mass repressions in 1937\u201338, during which hundreds of thousands of people were executed, including original party members and military leaders forced to confess to nonexistent plots.<\/p>\n Under Stalin’s leadership, the government launched a command economy, industrialization of the largely rural country, and collectivization of its agriculture. During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to penal labor camps, including many political convicts for their suspected or real opposition to Stalin’s rule; millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. The transitional disorganization of the country’s agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought, led to the Soviet famine of 1932\u20131933<\/a>,which killed between 2 and 3 million people in the Russian SFSR. The Soviet Union made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in a short span of time.<\/p>\n On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany broke their non-aggression treaty; and invaded the ill-prepared Soviet Union with the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history, opening the largest theater of World War II<\/a>. The Nazi Hunger Plan<\/a> foresaw the “extinction of industry as well as a great part of the population”. Nearly 3 million Soviet POWs in German captivity were murdered in just eight months of 1941\u201342. Although the Wehrmacht<\/a> had considerable early success, their attack was halted in the Battle of Moscow<\/a>. Subsequently, the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Stalingrad<\/a> in the winter of 1942\u201343, and then in the Battle of Kursk<\/a> in the summer of 1943.<\/p>\n Another German failure was the Siege of Leningrad<\/a>, in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941 and 1944 by German and Finnish forces, and suffered starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendered. Under Stalin’s administration and the leadership of such commanders as Georgy Zhukov<\/a> and Konstantin Rokossovsky<\/a>, Soviet forces steamrolled through Eastern Europe in 1944\u201345 and captured Berlin<\/a> in May 1945. In August 1945 the Soviet Army ousted the Japanese from China’s Manchukuo<\/a> and North Korea<\/a>, contributing to the allied victory over Japan.<\/p>\n The 1941\u201345 period of World War II is known in Russia as the “Great Patriotic War.” The Soviet Union together with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered as the Big Four of Allied powers in World War II, and later became the Four Policemen which was the foundation of the United Nations Security Council. During this war, which included many of the most lethal battle operations in human history, Soviet civilian and military death were about 27 million, accounting for about a third of all World War II casualties. The full demographic loss to the Soviet peoples was even greater. The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation which caused the Soviet famine of 1946\u201347<\/a>, but the Soviet Union emerged as an acknowledged superpower.<\/p>\n After the war, Eastern and Central Europe, including East Germany<\/a> and parts of Austria<\/a> were occupied by the Red Army according to the Potsdam Conference<\/a>. Dependent socialist governments were installed in the Eastern Bloc<\/a> satellite states. Becoming the world’s second nuclear power, the USSR established the Warsaw Pact alliance and entered into a struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War<\/a>, with the United States and NATO<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Stalin’s death and a short period of collective rule, the new leader Nikita Khrushchev<\/a> denounced Stalin<\/a> and launched the policy of de-Stalinization. The penal labor system was reformed and many prisoners were released and rehabilitated (many of them posthumously). The general easement of repressive policies became known later as the Khrushchev Thaw<\/a>. At the same time, tensions with the United States heightened when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the United States Jupiter missiles<\/a> in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, thus starting the Space Age. Russia’s cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin<\/a> became the first human to orbit the Earth, aboard the Vostok 1<\/a> manned spacecraft on 12 April 1961.<\/p>\n Following the ousting of Khrushchev in 1964, another period of collective rule ensued, until Leonid Brezhnev<\/a> became the leader. The era of the 1970s and the early 1980s was later designated as the Era of Stagnation<\/a>, a period when economic growth slowed and social policies became static. The 1965 Kosygin<\/a> reform aimed for partial decentralization of the Soviet economy and shifted the emphasis from heavy industry and weapons to light industry and consumer goods but was stifled by the conservative Communist leadership. In 1979, after a Communist-led revolution in Afghanistan, Soviet forces entered that country<\/a>. The occupation drained economic resources and dragged on without achieving meaningful political results. Ultimately, the Soviet Army was withdrawn from Afghanistan in 1989 due to international opposition, persistent anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare, and a lack of support by Soviet citizens.<\/p>\n From 1985 onwards, the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev<\/a>, who sought to enact liberal reforms in the Soviet system, introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to end the period of economic stagnation and to democratize the government. This, however, led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements. Prior to 1991, the Soviet economy was the second largest in the world, but during its last years, it was afflicted by shortages of goods in grocery stores, huge budget deficits, and explosive growth in the money supply leading to inflation.<\/p>\n By 1991, economic and political turmoil began to boil over as the Baltic states chose to secede from the Soviet Union. On 17 March, a referendum was held, in which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favor of changing the Soviet Union into a renewed federation. In August 1991, a coup d’\u00e9tat attempt by members of Gorbachev’s government, directed against Gorbachev and aimed at preserving the Soviet Union, instead led to the end of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On 25 December 1991, the USSR was dissolved into 15 post-Soviet states.<\/p>\n In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin<\/a> became the first directly elected president in Russian history when he was elected President of the Russian SFSR, which became the independent Russian Federation in December of that year. The economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union led to a deep and prolonged depression, characterized by a 50% decline in both GDP and industrial output between 1990 and 1995, although some of the recorded declines may have been a result of an upward bias in Soviet-era economic data. During and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, wide-ranging reforms including privatization and market and trade liberalization were undertaken, including radical changes along the lines of “shock therapy” as recommended by the United States and the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n The privatization largely shifted control of enterprises from state agencies to individuals with inside connections in the government. Many of the newly rich moved billions in cash and assets outside of the country in an enormous capital flight. The depression of the economy led to the collapse of social services; the birth rate plummeted while the death rate skyrocketed. Millions plunged into poverty, from a level of 1.5% in the late Soviet era to 39\u201349% by mid-1993. The 1990s saw extreme corruption and lawlessness, the rise of criminal gangs and violent crime.<\/p>\n In late 1993, tensions between Yeltsin and the Russian parliament culminated in a constitutional crisis which ended after military force. During the crisis, Yeltsin was backed by Western governments, and over 100 people were killed. In December, a referendum was held and approved, which introduced a new constitution, giving the president enormous powers.<\/p>\n The 1990s were plagued by armed conflicts in the North Caucasus<\/a>, both local ethnic skirmishes and separatist Islamist insurrections. From the time Chechen<\/a> separatists declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war<\/a> has been fought between the rebel groups and the Russian Armed Forces. Terrorist attacks against civilians carried out by separatists, most notably the Moscow theater hostage crisis<\/a> and Beslan school siege<\/a>, caused hundreds of deaths.<\/p>\n Russia took up the responsibility for settling the Soviet Union’s external debts, even though its population made up just half of it at the time of its dissolution. In 1992, most consumer price controls were eliminated, causing extreme inflation and significantly devaluing the Ruble. With a devalued Ruble, the Russian government struggled to pay back its debts to internal debtors, as well as international institutions like the International Monetary Fund. Despite significant attempts at economic restructuring, Russia’s debt outpaced GDP growth. High budget deficits coupled with increasing capital flight and inability to pay back debts, caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis, and resulted in a further GDP decline.<\/p>\n On 31 December 1999, President Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned, handing the post to the recently appointed Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yeltsin left office widely unpopular, with an approval rating as low as 2% by some estimates. Putin then won the 2000 presidential election and suppressed the Chechen insurgency<\/a>. As a result of high oil prices, a rise in foreign investment, and prudent economic and fiscal policies, the Russian economy grew for eight straight years; improving the standard of living, and increasing Russia’s influence on the world stage. Putin went on to win a second presidential term in 2004. Following the global economic crisis of 2008 and a subsequent drop in oil prices, Russia’s economy stagnated in 2009. And from 2010 to 2013, Russia enjoyed high economic growth; until falling oil prices coupled with international sanctions after the annexation of Crimea and the Russo-Ukrainian War<\/a> led to the economy shrinking in 2015, though it rebounded in 2016, and the recession officially ended. Many reforms made during the Putin presidency have been criticized as authoritarian, while Putin’s leadership over the return of order, stability, and prosperity has won him widespread admiration in Russia.<\/p>\n On 2 March 2008, Dmitry Medvedev<\/a> was elected President of Russia while Putin became Prime Minister. The Constitution of Russia prohibited Putin from serving a third consecutive presidential term. Putin returned to the presidency following the 2012 presidential elections, and Medvedev was appointed Prime Minister. This quick succession in leadership change was coined “tandemocracy” by outside media. Some critics claimed that the leadership change was superficial, and that Putin remained as the decision making force in the Russian government, while other political analysts viewed it as truly tandem. Alleged fraud in the 2011 parliamentary elections and Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 sparked mass protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2014, after President Viktor Yanukovych<\/a> of Ukraine fled as a result of a revolution<\/a>, Putin requested and received authorization from the Russian parliament to deploy Russian troops to Ukraine, leading to the takeover of Crimea. Following a Crimean referendum in which separation was favored by a large majority of voters, the Russian leadership announced the accession of Crimea into the Russian Federation, though this and the referendum that preceded it were not accepted internationally. The annexation of Crimea led to sanctions by Western countries, in which the Russian government responded with its own against a number of countries.<\/p>\n In September 2015, Russia started military intervention in the Syrian Civil War in support of the Syrian government, consisting of airstrikes against militant groups of the Islamic State<\/a>, al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in the Levant)<\/a>, the Army of Conquest<\/a> and other rebel groups.<\/p>\n In 2018, Putin was elected for a fourth presidential term overall. In January 2020, substantial amendments to the Constitution of Russia were proposed and took effect in July following a national vote, allowing Putin to run for two more six-year presidential terms after his current term ends. The vote was originally scheduled for April, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia.<\/p>\n Russia is the largest country in the world, covering a total area of 17,075,200 square kilometers (6,592,800 sq mi). It is a transcontinental country spanning much of the landmass of Eurasia<\/a>, stretching vastly over both Europe and Asia. Russia has the fourth-longest coastline in the world, at 37,653 km (23,396 mi). It is larger, by size, than three continents: Oceania, Europe, and Antarctica, and is slightly smaller than the dwarf planet of Pluto<\/a> by surface area.<\/p>\n The two most widely separated points in Russia are about 8,000 km (4,971 mi) apart along a geodesic line. Mountain ranges are found along the southern regions, which shares a portion of the Caucasus Mountains<\/a> (containing Mount Elbrus<\/a>; which at 5,642 m (18,510 ft) is the highest and most prominent peak in both Russia and Europe), the Altai Mountains<\/a> in Siberia<\/a>, and in the Russian Far East<\/a>, such as the Verkhoyansk Range<\/a> or the volcanoes of Kamchatka Peninsula<\/a>. The Ural Mountains<\/a>, rich in mineral resources, form a north\u2013south range that divides Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n The Baltic Sea<\/a>, Black Sea<\/a>, Barents Sea<\/a>, White Sea<\/a>, Kara Sea<\/a>, Laptev Sea<\/a>, East Siberian Sea<\/a>, Chukchi Sea<\/a>, Bering Sea<\/a>, Sea of Azov<\/a>, Sea of Okhotsk<\/a>, and the Sea of Japan<\/a> are linked to Russia via the Arctic, Pacific, and the Atlantic. Russia’s major islands and archipelagos include Novaya Zemlya<\/a>, the Franz Josef Land<\/a>, the Severnaya Zemlya<\/a>, the New Siberian Islands<\/a>, Wrangel Island<\/a>, the Kuril Islands<\/a>, and Sakhalin<\/a>. The Diomede Islands<\/a> are just 3 km (1.9 mi) apart, and Kunashir Island<\/a> is about 20 km (12.4 mi) from Hokkaido, Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Russia has one of the world’s largest surface water resources; with its lakes containing approximately one-quarter of the world’s liquid fresh water. The largest and most prominent of Russia’s bodies of fresh water is Lake Baikal<\/a>, the world’s deepest, purest, oldest and most capacious fresh water lake; which alone contains over one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. Other major lakes include Ladoga<\/a> and Onega<\/a>, two of the largest lakes in Europe. Russia is second only to Brazil in volume of the total renewable water resources. Out of the country’s 100,000 rivers, the Volga<\/a> is the most famous\u2014it is the longest river in Europe. The Siberian rivers of Ob<\/a>, Yenisey<\/a>, Lena<\/a> and Amur<\/a> are among the world’s longest rivers.<\/p>\n Russia has an upper-middle income mixed and transition economy, with enormous natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. It has the world’s eleventh-largest economy by nominal GDP and the sixth-largest by PPP. According to the IMF, Russia’s GDP per capita by PPP is $29,485 as of 2021. Approximately 12.9% of Russians lived below the national poverty line in 2018. Unemployment in Russia was 4.5% in 2019, and officially more than 70% of the Russian population is categorized as middle class; though this is disputed. By the end of December 2019, Russian foreign trade turnover reached $666.6 billion. Russia’s exports totaled over $422.8 billion, while its imported goods were worth over $243.8 billion.<\/p>\n Oil, natural gas, metals, and timber account for more than 80% of Russian exports abroad. In 2016, the oil-and-gas sector accounted for 36% of federal budget revenues. In 2019, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry estimated the value of natural resources to 60% of the country’s GDP. Russia has one of the lowest foreign debts among major economies. It ranked 28th of 190 countries in the 2019 Ease of Doing Business Index. Russia has a flat tax rate of 13%; with the world’s second-most attractive personal tax system for single managers after the United Arab Emirates. However, extreme inequality of household income and wealth in the country has also been noted.<\/p>\n Railway transport in Russia is mostly under the control of the state-run Russian Railways<\/a>. The total length of common-used railway tracks exceeds 85,500 km (53,127 mi), second only to the United States. The most renowned railway in Russia is the Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest railway-line in the world.<\/p>\n As of 2016, Russia had 1,452.2 km of roads, and its road density is the lowest among the BRICS<\/a>.<\/p>\n Among Russia’s 1,216 airports, the busiest are Sheremetyevo<\/a>, Domodedovo<\/a>, and Vnukovo<\/a> in Moscow, and Pulkovo<\/a> in Saint Petersburg.<\/p>\n Major seaports of Russia include Rostov-on-Don<\/a> on the Sea of Azov, Novorossiysk<\/a> on the Black Sea, Astrakhan<\/a> and Makhachkala<\/a> on the Caspian Sea, Kaliningrad<\/a> and Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea, Arkhangelsk<\/a> on the White Sea, Murmansk<\/a> on the Barents Sea, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky<\/a> and Vladivostok<\/a> on the Pacific Ocean. The world’s only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers<\/a> advances the economic exploitation of the Arctic continental shelf of Russia and the development of sea trade through the Northern Sea Route.<\/a><\/p>\n The flag of the Russian Federation is a tricolor flag consisting of three equal horizontal fields: white on the top, blue in the middle, and red on the bottom. The flag was first used as an ensign for Russian merchant ships in 1696.<\/p>\n It remained in use until 1858, when the first official flag of the Russian Empire<\/a> was decreed by Alexander II<\/a>, which was a tricolor consisting of three horizontal fields: black on the top, yellow in the middle, and white on the bottom. A decree in 1896 reinstated the white, blue, and red tricolor as the official flag of the Russian Empire until the Revolution of 1917.<\/p>\n Following the creation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic<\/a> after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian tricolor was abolished, and its usage was preserved by the White Movement<\/a> and the Russian state<\/a> during the Russian Civil War<\/a>. During the Soviet Union’s existence, it used the red flag with a golden hammer and sickle and a golden bordered red star on top while the Russian SFSR (a constituent republic of the USSR), used a defaced variant with a vertical blue bar at the hoist.<\/p>\n During the dissolution of the Soviet Union<\/a>, the Russian SFSR adopted a new flag design that looked almost identical to the pre-revolutionary tricolor that was previously abolished in 1917 after the 1991 August Coup<\/a>. The ratio of the new flag was 1:2, and the flag colors consisted of white on the top, azure in the middle, and scarlet on the bottom. The flag design remained the same until 1993, when the original Russian tricolor was fully restored as the current flag after the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following the creation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian tricolor was abolished, and its usage was preserved by the White Movement and the Russian state during the Russian Civil War. During the Soviet Union’s existence, it used the red flag with a golden hammer and sickle and a golden bordered red star on top while the Russian SFSR (a constituent republic of the USSR), used a defaced variant with a vertical blue bar at the hoist.<\/p>\n During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian SFSR adopted a new flag design that looked almost identical to the pre-revolutionary tricolour that was previously abolished in 1917 after the 1991 August Coup. The ratio of the new flag was 1:2, and the flag colors consisted of white on the top, azure in the middle, and scarlet on the bottom. The flag design remained the same until 1993, when the original Russian tricolour was fully restored as the current flag after the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36,59,26,5,6,7,18,68,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Red-Square-in-Moscow-300x227.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>History:<\/h2>\n
Early History:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Scythia-300x191.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Bosporan-Kingdom-300x255.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Kievan Rus’:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Kievan-Rus-11the-Century-300x296.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Golden-Horde-300x181.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Grand Duchy of Moscow:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Grand-Duchy-of-Moscow-300x290.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Ivan-III-226x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Tsardom of Russia:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Ivan-the-Terrible-160x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Dmitry-Pozharsky-left-and-Kuzma-Minin-right-300x188.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Stepan-Razin-229x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Imperial Russia:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Peter-the-Great-181x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Elizabeth-of-Russia-239x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Catherine-II-The-Great-252x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Alexander-II-210x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>February Revolution and Russian Republic:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Emperor-Nicholas-II-of-Russia-and-His-Family-300x265.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Russian Civil War:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Vladimir-Lenin-221x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Soviet Union:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Joseph-Stalin-200x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Leon-Trotsky-221x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>World War II:<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/The-Battle-of-Stalingrad-300x108.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Georgy-Zhukov-242x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Cold War:<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Nikita-Khrushchev-224x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Yuri-Gagarin-192x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Mikhail-Gorbachev-with-US-President-Ronald-Reagan-300x199.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Post-Soviet Russia (1991\u2013present):<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Boris-Yeltsin-225x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/A-Russian-Mi-8-helicopter-shot-down-by-Chechen-fighters-near-the-Chechen-capital-Grozny-300x198.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Putin Era:<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Vladimir-Putin-198x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Dmitry-Medvedev-218x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Geography:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Topographic-Map-of-Russia-300x226.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Economy:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Tree-Map-of-Russian-Exports-300x234.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Transportation:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Trans-Siberian-Railway-300x214.jpg\" "\\"\\""){kind=spacer}
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Terminal-D-Sheremetyevo-Airport-300x219.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Flag of Russia:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/08\/Flag-of-Russia-300x200.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>