Russian Federation

Russia presents itself at once as a study in extremes and as a singular mosaic of human endeavour across an expanse that dwarfs three continents. Stretching from the Baltic littoral at 19° E to the Pacific margin at 169° W, and from the Black Sea coast to the Arctic frontier between 41° and 82° N, the Russian Federation covers more than one-eighth of the world’s inhabited land surface. With its 146.0 million inhabitants as of 2025, it claims the largest territory on Earth, spans eleven time zones, and shares borders with fourteen sovereign neighbours. Although this domain hosts only eight and a half persons per square kilometre on average, its western cities pulse with life; sixteen urban agglomerations surpass the one-million mark, and Moscow reigns as Europe’s most populous metropolis. This vastness, both geographical and demographic, anchors Russia’s status as a great power while shaping a human story that unfolds in climates ranging from humid subtropical to polar, from stifling continental heat to record-setting cold of −71.2 °C in the Sakha Republic.

The tapestry of Russian history—as manifest today in its urban skylines, rural chalets, and frontier hamlets—begins in the Lower Paleolithic, when small bands of hunter-gatherers traversed its river valleys. By the third century CE, the East Slavs had emerged as a distinct cultural and linguistic group on the European plain. Their political consolidation found expression in the ninth century with the rise of Kievan Rus′, centred on the Dnieper’s lower reaches. In 988, its Grand Prince converted to Orthodox Christianity under Byzantine auspices, forging a religious identity that remains a cornerstone of Russian cultural life. The fragmentation of Kievan Rus′ by external incursions and internal rivalries cleared the path for Muscovy, whose grand dukes marshalled disparate principalities under the aegis of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In 1547, Ivan IV assumed the title of Tsar, inaugurating the Tsardom of Russia.

Under Peter the Great and his successors, Russia projected power across Eurasia, acquiring territories from the Baltic to the Pacific, and achieving imperial stature by the early eighteenth century. The Russian Empire emerged as the third-largest in history, its frontiers stabilized by conquest, colonization, and exploration. Mountains and steppes yielded furs, grain, and minerals that enriched the court at Saint Petersburg—Peter’s “window to Europe”—even as serfdom persisted in the countryside. Revolutionary fervour, born of political repression and military setbacks, culminated in 1917. The February Revolution ended Romanov autocracy, and the October Revolution installed the Russian SFSR as the world’s first constitutionally socialist state.

The ensuing civil war gave way to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, within which the Russian SFSR held preeminence. Under Stalin’s rule, industry was remade by five-year plans even as millions suffered famine, purges, and forced labour. The Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945, achieved at immense human cost on the Eastern Front, affirmed its status as a global power. The space age dawned with Sputnik in 1957 and Yuri Gagarin’s orbital flight in 1961, endeavors that embodied the era’s technological ambition. As Cold War tensions waxed and waned, the Soviet sphere contended with ideological and military rivalry against the United States.

By December 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved; the Russian Federation emerged from the Russian SFSR with a new constitution establishing a federal semi-presidential republic. The post-Soviet chapter has witnessed a complex interplay of market reform, resource nationalism, and political retrenchment. Since Vladimir Putin’s rise to the presidency in 1999, the political system has drifted toward authoritarianism. Democratic institutions have eroded, civil liberties have contracted, and press freedom has diminished. Abroad, Russia has engaged in conflicts in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine since 2014, annexing Crimea and, later, further Ukrainian regions in violation of international norms.

Yet domestic and international controversy exists alongside a society anchored in centuries-old traditions. Russian remains the official and overwhelmingly predominant language, the most widely spoken Slavic tongue and one of six at the United Nations and two aboard the International Space Station. Its literature—Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev—has shaped European thought; its composers—Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky—have enriched the global canon; its ballet companies remain paragons of classical discipline; its theatres and museums testify to a passion for art that spans icon painting to avant-garde cinema.

Geographically, Russia’s contours are defined by nine major mountain systems. To the south, the Caucasus Mountains rise to Mount Elbrus at 5,642 m, the loftiest summit in Europe. Siberia’s Altai and Sayan ranges, and the volcanic peaks of Kamchatka, including Klyuchevskaya Sopka at 4,750 m, attest to the nation’s tectonic restiveness. The Ural Mountains—rich in ore and gemstones—form the traditional Europe-Asia divide. Its low points plunge to 29 m below sea level at the Caspian Depression, while its Arctic and Pacific coasts render Russia one of three states to touch three oceans and the custodianship of more than 37,653 km of coastline. Islands as remote as Wrangel and Franz Josef Land stand sentinel in the Arctic, while Sakhalin and the Kurils mark the Far Eastern fringes, some contested by Japan.

The Russian interior is traversed by more than 100,000 rivers and hosts lakes that contain one-quarter of the world’s liquid fresh water. Lake Baikal, at 1,642 m deep, is the deepest and oldest lacustrine basin on Earth, holding over one-fifth of all surface freshwater. To the west lie Ladoga and Onega, among Europe’s largest. The Volga, “Mother River,” courses through western plains to its vast delta on the northern Caspian, while the Ob, Yenisey, Lena, and Amur drain Siberia toward the Arctic and Pacific. These waterways have shaped settlement and transport patterns from medieval periods to the era of factory barges.

Climate regimes shift abruptly from north to south and east to west. Siberia endures subarctic winters that chill to extremes, contrasted by hot summers that see river valleys bloom into mainland oases. The Arctic archipelagos and tundra fall under polar influence; the Black Sea coast around Sochi enjoys humid subtropical winters that recall the Mediterranean; scant tropical breezes reach the Caspian’s semi-arid littoral and southern Siberian slopes; and the western maritime plains feel Atlantic tempering in Kaliningrad and along the Baltic. A brief spring and autumn frame the two dominant seasons, winter and summer, as growers and outdoor workers plan around snowbound months or heatwaves alike. Climate change now intensifies wildfires, thaws permafrost, and reshapes patterns of precipitation and agriculture.

Administratively, the federation comprises 83 federal subjects: 46 oblasts, 21 republics, nine krais, four autonomous okrugs, two federal cities, and one autonomous oblast. Central Russia, long the cultural heartland, boasts Moscow and its satellite oblast, Yaroslavl and Vladimir with their medieval churches. The Chernozem region south of Moscow—Kursk, Voronezh—retains black soils that fed armies and peasants across wars and famines. Northwestern Russia, anchored by Saint Petersburg, stretches to the White Sea and the Karelia woodlands. In the south, the Crimean peninsula and the Caucasus republics present contrasts of subtropical resorts and rugged mountain cultures. The Volga region hums with industry and Tatar heritage in Kazan and Samara, while the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East deliver minerals, forests, and frontiers that challenge infrastructure and governance in equal measure.

Urban life in Russia reflects this regional diversity. Moscow’s skyline juxtaposes onion domes with glass towers, its streets recalling centuries of czars and Soviet planners. The Moscow Metro—lavishly adorned—serves as both transit network and public art. Saint Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great, unfolds along canals and neoclassical avenues under the glow of its fabled white nights. Kazan unites Orthodox cathedrals with minarets, emblematic of Russia’s multiethnic federation. Nizhny Novgorod, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok are ports, industrial hubs, and cultural centres, each revealing distinct chapters of Russian history and economic life. Volgograd’s Soviet memorials recall Stalingrad’s cataclysm; Sochi’s subtropical shore fostered an Olympic reinvention in 2014; Kizhi’s wooden churches drift like memories on Lake Onega.

Tourism, once modest in the Soviet era, has soared and ebbed with geopolitics and pandemics. In 2019, foreign visits to Russia reached 24.4 million, contributing 4.8 percent to GDP. Red Square, the Hermitage, and the Tretyakov Gallery attract those engaged by art and history. The Golden Ring’s collection of towns—Suzdal, Rostov, Vladimir—offers chapters of ecclesiastical architecture. The Trans-Siberian Railway invites intrepid travellers to span 9,000 km between continents. Kamchatka’s geysers and bears, Lake Baikal’s ice-blue depths, Solovetsky’s monastic fortress, and the Komi Virgin Forests remain outside the metropole’s glare, accessible only by river barge or bush plane. Russia’s roster of 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites attests to its natural and cultural wealth—yet its remoteness ensures that many paths remain lightly trodden.

Demographically, Russia confronts challenges of an ageing population and low fertility, with a total fertility rate of 1.41 births per woman in 2024. Urbanisation has drawn two-thirds of residents into cities, even as the national density plummets east of the Urals. Median age at 41.9 years renders the society among the world’s oldest, with implications for pensions, healthcare, and labour markets. Emigration and migration policy, particularly regarding former Soviet republics, continue to shape the ethnic and professional composition of towns from Moscow to Magadan.

Cuisine and conviviality reflect both climate and history. Hearty breads of rye and wheat sustain cold winters; soups—shchi, borsch, ukha—combine meats, root vegetables, and sour cream to deliver energy and warmth. Blini, pirozhki, and syrniki punctuate breakfasts and tea times. Pelmeni and golubtsy draw upon meat and cabbage in folds and rolls that speak of peasant ingenuity. Beef Stroganoff and Chicken Kiev bear aristocratic associations, while shashlyk enlivens festive grills. Kvass, an ancient fermented beverage, quenches thirst with mild effervescence; vodka, distilled since the fourteenth century, remains the emblem of Russian toasts, even as beer and wine find favour in modern youth culture.

In this vast nation, the past and present coexist in layered complexity. Catherines’s baroque palaces and Soviet memorials stand alongside glass-fronted office towers. Orthodox bell towers frame new condominium blocks. Echoes of the tsars and the Politburo mingle in museum halls. Mountains and forests guard villages that speak dialects of Ukraine, Finland, and Asia. Rivers continue to bear barges and passenger steamers in patterns set by imperial decree and collective enterprise. Eleven time zones unfold in noon-and-midnight rhythms, yet a single flag and a single national myth bind the peoples of Belgorod and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

Ultimately, Russia is neither monolith nor miracle but a perpetually changing entity of vast proportions. Its riches of oil, gas, timber, and minerals underpin an economy ranked eleventh in nominal GDP but must be balanced against governance that courts controversy, a civil society curtailed and a press constrained. Its strategic heft is mirrored in a nuclear arsenal unrivalled outside the United States, and in diplomatic clout as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a fulcrum of G20, BRICS, and regional arrangements from the Commonwealth of Independent States to the Eurasian Economic Union. Yet the human terrain—cities, villages, rivers, and mountains—remains the true currency of Russian identity. It is here, amid birch forests and marble cathedrals, on frozen lakes and sun-blazed steppe, that the essence of this nation may be most profoundly felt.

This is Russia as both stage and actor: at once an heir to millennia of human habitation and a crucible of modern power. It is a place where history is inscribed in stone and steel, where nature asserts its grandeur beyond the reach of man, and where the next turn in the chronicle remains unwritten but shaped by the vastness it occupies and the people who call it home.