commonly called Russia, formerly known as the RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERATED SOCIALIST REPUBLIC (RSFSR), republic, E Europe and N Asia, the largest of the constituent republics of the former USSR, and a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The Russian SFSR, which comprised most of what was the Russian Empire, accounted at the 1989 census for 76% of the area and about 51% of the population of the USSR. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Russian SFSR ceased to exist, and the Russian Federation emerged as an independent country.

The Russian Federation is bounded on the N by the Arctic Ocean; on the E by the Pacific Ocean; on the S by China, Mongolia, Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine; on the SW by Ukraine; on the W by Belarus, Latvia, Estonia; and on the NW by Finland. Kaliningrad is an exclave of Russia, separated from the rest of the country by Lithuania and bordering on Poland and the Baltic Sea. The federation’s area is about 17,075,400 sq km (about 6,592,800 sq mi).

Land AND RESOURCES

Occupying much of E Europe and all of N Asia, the vast territory of the Russian Federation presents an immense diversity of geographic features. The principal topographic feature of European Russia is the E European Plain, a vast hilly area with elevations seldom exceeding 300 m (about 1000 ft). The Asian portion of the federation consists of Siberia and the rest of Far Eastern Russia, which constitute the Pacific coastal region. Western Siberia is largely a plain; to the E of this is the Central Siberian Plateau. From SW Siberia a number of mountain ranges, such as the Sayan Mts., Yablonovyy Range, and Stanovoy Range, extend in a general NE direction. The Far East includes the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin Island, and the Kuril Islands; active volcanoes are present in this region. The Arctic and Pacific coasts of the federation total some 32,185 km (approximately 20,000 mi) in length.

Rivers and Lakes.

The chief river of the European area, and one of Europe’s major rivers, is the Volga, which rises in the Valday Hills and flows in a SE direction to the Caspian Sea. Other important rivers of this region include the Don and the Northern Dvina. Siberia is drained by a great network of rivers, most of which, including the major ones—the Lena, Ob, and Yenisey—drain N to the Arctic Ocean. The chief river of the Far East, the Amur, drains E to the Pacific Ocean. The principal freshwater lakes of the European area are Lakes Ladoga and Onega, with outlets to the Gulf of Finland; Lake Baykal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, is in Siberia.

Climate.

Climatic conditions range from the subtropical of the Black Sea coast to the permafrost zone of the Arctic. Most of the federation, however, has a pronounced continental climate, with long, harsh winters and brief, warm summers. With respect to soils and plants, Russia comprises five latitudinal zones. From N to S are located the tundra region (along the Arctic Ocean coast); the forest zone, or taiga (from the W boundary to the Pacific); the steppe region (chiefly in Europe), containing the fertile blackearth belt; the semi-desert zone (SW Siberia); and the small subtropical zone (S part of the European region).

Population

More than 60 nationalities are represented in the federation, with Russians constituting more than 80% of the total. The largest minorities are Tatars, Ukrainians, Chuvash, Bashkirs, Mordvins, Belarussians, and Jews.

Population Characteristics.

The Russian Federation had a population (1992 est.) of 148,704,000, reflecting an annual growth rate of only about 0.2% in the early 1990s. The overall population density was about 9 persons per sq km (about 23 per sq mi). The average life expectancy in the early 1990s was 74 years for women and 62 for men; the infant mortality rate was 18 per 1000 live births. Nearly three-fourths of the people live in urban areas.

Political Divisions.

In the early 1990s the Russian Federation included 21 republics (listed below with their capitals), together accounting for about 29% of the federation’s territory and about 16% of its population: Adygea (Maikop), Bashkortostan (Ufa), Buryatia (Ulan-Ude), the secessionist Chechnya (Groznyy), Chuvashia (Cheboksary), Dagestan (Makhachkala), Gorno-Altay (Gorno-Altaisk), Ingushetia (Nazran), Kabardino-Balkaria (Nalchik), Kalmykia (Elista), Karachay-Cherkessia (Cherkessk), Karelia (Petrozavodsk), Khakassia (Abakan), Komi (Syktyvkar), Mari El (Yoshkar-Ola), Mordovia (or Mordvinia; Saransk), North Ossetia (Vladikavkaz), Sakha (Yakutsk), Tatarstan (Kazan), Tyva (Kyzyl), and Udmurtia (Izhevsk). The rest of the federation, or Russia proper, was subdivided into 49 regions (oblasts), 6 territories (krays), 10 autonomous districts (okrugs), and other units. Many of these designations were in flux, as regions and peoples within the federation sought increased autonomy or, in some cases, complete independence.

Information on Kalmykia, Mordovia, and North Ossetia may be found in the articles Kalmucks, Mordvin, and Ossetians.

Principal Cities.

The capital and largest city of the federation is Moscow; the second largest city is Saint Petersburg. Other important cities include Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Rostov-na-Donu, Samara, and Volgograd.

Language and Religion.

Russian is the official language. Most Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians. Most of the non-Slavic peoples are Muslims; Buryats, Kalmucks, and Tyvians are Buddhists.

Education.

In the late 1990s, Russia had more than 72,000 elementary and secondary schools, with a combined enrollment of nearly 24 million students. The country also had more than 900 institutions of higher learning, which together enrolled some 3.6 million students. Notable institutions of higher education include St. Petersburg State University (1724); Moscow M. V. Lomonosov State University (1755); Kazan State University (1804); Tomsk State University (1880); and Far Eastern State University (1899), in Vladivostok. Virtually the entire adult population is literate.

Economy

The Russian Federation is the most economically developed area of the former USSR; during the Soviet period it was responsible for about 70% of all its agricultural and industrial production. Russia is extremely rich in mineral resources. Oil and gas fields are found in both the S European region and in W Siberia. The Urals have deposits of copper, manganese, asbestos, platinum, and tungsten. Coal is mined in the Pechora Basin in Europe and the Kuznetsk Basin in Siberia. Other mineral reserves include iron, bauxite, zinc, and lead. Russia has several of the world’s largest hydroelectric plants, notably those on the Volga and Angara rivers.

In the early 1990s the Russian Federation had an annual gross national product (GNP) of about $2510 per capita. After Communism collapsed, the country suffered severe economic disruptions, including runaway inflation and shortages of basic goods. Already burdened with a foreign debt of more than $78 billion, the country sought massive financial assistance from the West to stabilize and restructure from a state-planned to a free-market economy in 1994. Following a new financial crisis in 1998, the GNP had shrunk to an estimated $2300 per capita.

Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing.

With more than half the cultivated land in the former USSR, Russia is a major producer of grain, meat, and milk. Other important agricultural products include cotton, flax, potatoes, sugar beets, vegetables, and wool. With its great expanses of forest, the federation is also a major lumber producer. Fishing is most important on the Pacific coast, but is carried on also in the Caspian, Barents, and White seas.

Industry.

Industry is diversified, with heavy industry of special importance. In the European sector the chief industries are oil refining, shipbuilding, and the manufacture of automobiles, chemicals, machinery, and electrical equipment. Metallurgical industries are important in the Ural region. S Siberia is of growing economic importance, with oil refineries and plants producing chemicals, machinery, and steel.

Currency.

The national currency, the ruble of 100 kopeks, plunged from an official rate of 0.57 ruble per U.S.$1 in 1991 to a free market rate of about 3000 rubles per U.S.$1 in 1994. Inflation was curbed and the ruble revalued in the mid-1990s, but a new financial crisis in 1998 left the Russian government on the brink of bankruptcy and facing a foreign debt that had swollen to an estimated $200 billion. Devalued in January 1998 at a rate of 1000 old rubles to 1 new ruble, the currency traded at nearly 30 rubles to the U.S. dollar in early 2000.

Transportation.

In the late 1990s, Russia had about 150,000 km (about 93,200 mi) of railways and some 948,000 km (some 589,100 mi) of roads, of which about 35% were paved. The country also had about 101,000 km (about 62,800 mi) of navigable waterways. Major seaports include Novorossiysk and Sochi on the Black Sea; St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea; Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Magadan, Nakhodka, and Vladivostok on the Pacific coast; and Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in the north. Aeroflot is the national air carrier. Moscow and St. Petersburg have the leading international airports.

Communications.

The telecommunications system in the late 1990s included 29 million main telephone lines, 747,000 cellular telephone subscribers, 6 million personal computers, 1 million Internet users, and 62 million televisions. In the mid-1990s the country had some 285 daily newspapers, with an aggregate circulation of about 15.5 million per day. Izvestiya (News), the official national newspaper, is published in Moscow. Although journalists enjoy much greater freedom than in the Soviet era, federal, regional, and local governments continue to exert pressure on public and private media.

Government

Under a constitution enacted in 1993, the president of the Russian Federation holds broad executive powers and is directly elected to a 4-year term. The legislature, or Federal Assembly, consists of an upper house, the Federation Council, with 178 members; and a lower house, the State Duma, with 450 members. The head of government is the prime minister, who is nominated by the president, subject to confirmation by a majority of the Duma; if, after three attempts, the prime minister fails to win confirmation, the Duma must be dissolved and new elections held. The highest courts in the federation are the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Arbitration Court, and the Supreme Court.

Defense.

A military superpower during the Soviet era, Russia drastically reduced its military expenditures in the 1990s. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union had more than 4 million personnel on active duty; a decade later, Russia’s armed forces numbered fewer than 1.2 million, and many of the troops were ill-equipped and underpaid. Russia has the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal, with about 6000 warheads in the late 1990s. A defense reduction and modernization program announced in September 2000 called for cutting another 350,000 troops and decreasing the number of nuclear warheads to 1500.

International Organizations.

In addition to its membership in the CIS, the Russian Federation is a member of the United Nations (UN) and holds a permanent seat on the Security Council. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Council of Europe. Russia suspended its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Partnership for Peace program from March to July 1999 to protest NATO’s bombing of what was then Yugoslavia. In May 2002 the NATO-Russian Council was established.

History

For history before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, see Russia; for history during the Soviet period, see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The territory that became the Russian Federation was the first part of the former Russian Empire to be ruled by a Soviet government. On Nov. 7, 1917, when the Bolshevik Revolution overthrew the provisional republican government established in March of that year, the soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies were declared to be the organs of government. In the first Soviet constitution, ratified on July 10, 1918, the name of Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic was adopted by the Fifth All-Russian Congress.

Soviet Republic.

The Russian SFSR was intended to include all the territory of the former Russian Empire, but during the civil war that followed the Soviet seizure of power, the Bolsheviks were able to hold only a part of the imperial territories. Thus, several former imperial provinces became completely independent (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland), and others were united into new or extant states (the reincorporation of Poland; the incorporation of Bessarabia into Romania). A few provinces were sovietized independently as the Ukrainian SSR, Belorussian SSR, and Transcaucasian SSR. A plan of federation was drawn up in 1922 and 1923, and in January 1924 a new constitution was promulgated, reorganizing the areas under Soviet control into the USSR.

Collapse of the Soviet Union.

In March 1990, after the Soviet Communist party agreed to give up its monopoly on political power, the Russian SFSR held free elections for the Congress of People’s Deputies, the Russian parliament. In May the new legislators narrowly elected Boris Yeltsin as chairman of the Supreme Soviet. The Russian SFSR decalred its sovereignty in June 1990 and became a leader in the movement to dismantle the Soviet system and to transfer power to the constituent republics. In June 1991 Yeltsin easily won election to the presidency of Russia. With the proclamation of the CIS on Dec. 21, 1991, the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist and the Russian SFSR changed its name to the Russian Federation. Demanding recognition as the successor to the USSR in international forums, Russia assumed the Soviet Union’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Independent Federation.

In March 1992 the treaty of federation was signed by the majority of the autonomous republics within the former Russian SFSR; Ingushetia adhered in June, after its separation from Chechnya.

Yeltsin and U.S. President George H. W. Bush signed the START II Treaty (see Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) in January 1993, but Yeltsin was unable to persuade parliament to ratify it.

Despite aid from the U.S. and other industrialized nations, the Russian economy was weakened by the transition to a free market. Amid growing discontent, Yeltsin barely survived an attempt by the parliament in March 1993 to impeach him. He took the offensive on September 21 by suspending parliament. When the deputies refused to adjourn and voted to depose Yeltsin, he ordered police to seal off the parliament building, known as the White House. On October 3 armed opponents of Yeltsin overran the police and took over the White House. Two days later, forces loyal to Yeltsin recaptured the White House and arrested the rebels. In elections in December, voters approved a constitution that expanded Yeltsin’s presidential powers but elected a new parliament in which nationalists and Communists opposed to Yeltsin made an unexpectedly strong showing.

In June 1994 Russia joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program for military cooperation. In December the government sent an estimated 40,000 troops into Chechnya in an effort to crush a rebellion there. The war in Chechnya continued throughout 1995, while doubts about Yeltsin’s health and leadership clouded Russia’s political climate. In parliamentary elections in December 1995, the Communists won a plurality of the vote, and moderate and reform parties did poorly. In late March 1996, Yeltsin signed an accord calling for closer economic ties between Belarus, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. A separate treaty in early April provided for the eventual economic and political integration of Belarus with Russia; the pact established the Community of Sovereign Republics within the CIS. An agreement that same year between Kazakstan, Russia, Oman, and major oil companies provided for the construction of a $1.5-billion pipeline that would export petroleum from western Kazakstan via the Russian port of Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea.

Yeltsin Reelected.

Despite poor health, Yeltsin ran for reelection as president. In the first round of voting in June 1996, he narrowly defeated a Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov (1944–    ). The third-place finisher, Alexander Lebed (1950–2002), a retired general, endorsed Yeltsin, who made him national security chief. Yeltsin then beat Zyuganov in the runoff election in July, winning about 54 percent of the vote. After rebels recaptured Groznyy, the Chechen capital, Yeltsin granted Lebed broad powers to negotiate a settlement; agreement on a cease-fire was reached in August. Two months later, appearing on national television, Yeltsin charged Lebed with insubordination and signed a decree relieving him of his responsibilities. Yeltsin successfully underwent multiple-bypass heart surgery in early November.

The last Russian troops remaining in Chechnya were pulled out at the beginning of 1997. In March, a reinvigorated Yeltsin strengthened the hand of reformers in his cabinet and held a summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, with U.S. President Bill Clinton. Yeltsin successfully negotiated a series of treaties in May, including a formal peace accord with Chechnya and a charter establishing a mainly symbolic union with Belarus. Easing tensions that had existed since the Soviet breakup, multiple agreements with Ukraine acknowledged Ukrainian sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula, confirmed the status of the Black Sea fleet, and committed Russia to pay Ukraine about $100 million annually over a 20-year period to lease facilities at the port of Sevastopol. Also in May in Paris, Yeltsin signed the “Founding Act,” a treaty providing for cooperation and consultation with NATO; at the same time, the Russian leader dropped his objection to the expansion of NATO to the former Soviet-bloc countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In June, Yeltsin traveled to Denver, Colo., to take part in the meeting of the world’s seven leading industrial democracies known as the Group of Seven, or G-7; because of Russia’s participation, the name of the organization was subsequently changed to the Group of Eight (G-8).

Political Upheavals.

In March 1998, with the economy still lagging, Yeltsin surprised the nation by dismissing his entire cabinet as well as Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin (1938–    ). His new choice for prime minister was a little-known technocrat, Sergey Kiriyenko (1962–    ). Parliament twice declined to confirm Kiriyenko, but Yeltsin’s choice prevailed on the third vote, held in late April. In late May, faced with a new financial crisis, the government tripled interest rates to 150 percent in an effort to stabilize the ruble and stem an outflow of foreign investment. In August the ruble plummeted, Russian financial markets collapsed, and the government was unable to service its debt or pay pensioners and state employees. As calls for his resignation intensified, Yeltsin responded to the crisis by bringing Chernomyrdin back. Once again, parliament balked at Yeltsin’s nominee, and political turmoil in both Russia and the U.S. overshadowed a summit meeting between Yeltsin and Clinton in Moscow in early September. When Chernomyrdin withdrew his candidacy on September 10, Yeltsin selected Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov (1929–    ), a veteran diplomat with a KGB background, to form a government; parliament confirmed the appointment.

Yeltsin survived another parliamentary challenge in May, when the State Duma launched impeachment proceedings against him. None of the five impeachment charges received the necessary two-thirds majority; an article accusing Yeltsin of starting the war in Chechnya came closest, gaining 283 of the 300 votes required. Shortly before the impeachment debate began, Yeltsin dismissed the popular Primakov and nominated First Vice-Prime Minister Sergey V. Stepashin (1952–    ) to replace him. Stepashin, a Yeltsin loyalist with extensive experience in the security services, was confirmed by the State Duma shortly after impeachment proceedings ended.

Kosovo conflict.

Russia initially sought to mediate the dispute between NATO and Yugoslavia over the treatment of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. When NATO began its aerial assault on Yugoslavia in March 1999, however, Russia denounced the NATO action and suspended cooperation with the alliance. As Yeltsin’s envoy to the Balkans, Chernomyrdin had a pivotal role in bridging differences between his country and NATO and, subsequently, in persuading Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević to accept NATO’s terms. While continuing to condemn what it called “NATO aggression,” Russia cosponsored a UN Security Council resolution in June that, in effect, authorized a NATO-led security force to move into Kosovo. The NATO allies were surprised, however, when a column of Russian troops, which had been serving as part of the international security force in Bosnia, crossed through Serbia and entered Priština, the capital of Kosovo, without NATO’s prior knowledge or approval. An agreement on Russian troop redeployment within Kosovo was reached in July.

Renewed violence in the Caucasus.

In August, Yeltsin shook up his cabinet for the fourth time in 17 months, replacing Stepashin with Vladimir Putin, who, like both Primakov and Stepashin, was associated with Russia’s national security agencies. The cabinet changes, quickly approved by parliament, accompanied an escalation of Russian military efforts to stamp out a Muslim separatist rebellion in Dagestan, a constituent republic that shares a border with Chechnya. The Russian government, which blamed Islamic militants in Chechnya for the Dagestan insurgency and for terrorist bombings in Moscow and elsewhere, launched a ferocious assault against the breakaway republic. Russian troops captured Groznyy in February 2000, having already destroyed much of the city.

New Leadership.

In parliamentary elections in December 1999, the Communist party won the largest number of seats, but groups loyal to Putin formed an important voting bloc. Yeltsin stepped down at the end of December, six months before the end of his term. Putin, who had staked much of his prestige on the Chechnya war, then became acting president. One of Putin’s first official acts was to sign a decree guaranteeing Yeltsin’s physical and financial security and granting him immunity from criminal prosecution. Facing ten opponents, Putin won 53 percent of the popular vote in the presidential election of March 2000; Zyuganov, the Communist candidate, finished in second place with 30 percent. In April the State Duma ratified two long-delayed arms control agreements, the START II Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (see Arms Control, International). Russia abandoned START II two years later, after the U.S., seeking to build a missile defense system, abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972).

Putin was sworn in for a full 4-year term on May 7, 2000. His choice for prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov (1957–    ), a former finance minister, won swift confirmation by the legislature. In mid-May, Putin announced a series of proposals to reorganize Russia’s federal system, curbing the powers of regional officials and restoring authority to Moscow. All 118 crew members aboard the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk perished in August when their vessel sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea after suffering heavy damage from an explosion. Putin faced another crisis in October 2002, when some 50 armed Chechen guerrillas seized more than 800 hostages in a Moscow theater; tactics employed by Russian special forces, including the use of excessive quantities of an aerosol anesthetic, resulted in the deaths of 129 of the hostages and nearly all the terrorists. In Chechnya, meanwhile, Russian troops continued to face sustained resistance from Islamic separatists. A favorable vote there on a March 2003 referendum approving a new constitution that made Chechnya part of the Russian Federation again was welcomed by the Kremlin and coincided with a limited withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, but it was considered unlikely that the referendum would stop hostile acts by rebels. Presidential and parliamentary were slated to be held there in December 2003. Although Russia supported the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan in 2001, it sided with France and Germany in an unsuccessful diplomatic effort to halt the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq in 2003. In May of that year the lower house of the Russian Parliament ratified the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty that had been signed a year earlier by Russia and the U.S., and Putin welcomed more than 40 world leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao, to St. Petersburg to celebrate that city’s 300th anniversary. In June Putin made a state visit to Great Britain, the first by a Russian leader since Czar Alexander II in 1874.

For more information on this topic, see the Bibliography, sections 971. General Russia, 972. Russian history, 973. Russo-Japanese War, 974. Crimean War, 975. Russian Revolution, 976. Moscow, St. Petersburg, 977. Modern Russian history, 978. Russian diplomacy, 979. Soviet history, 980. Siberia.