Russia, likewise called the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country covering Eastern Europe as well as Northern Asia. It is the biggest nation on the planet by area, covering over 17,125,191 square kilometres (6,612,073 sq mi), as well as including one-eighth of Earth’s inhabitable landmass. Russia extends throughout eleven time zones and also borders sixteen sovereign nations, the most of any country in the world.

It is the ninth-most populous country as well as one of the most populous nation in Europe, with a population of 145.5 million. The country’s resources and biggest city is Moscow, the largest city completely within Europe. Saint Petersburg is Russia’s cultural centre and also second-largest city. Other major urban areas consist of Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and also Kazan.

The East Slavs emerged as a recognisable team in Europe in between the third and also 8th centuries AD. The middle ages state of Kievan Rus’ occurred in the 9th century. In 988, it took on Orthodox Christianity from the Oriental Empire. Rus’ ultimately disintegrated, and amongst its principalities, the Grand Duchy of Moscow rose.

By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded with conquest, addition, and expedition to evolve into the Russian Realm, the third-largest empire in history. The monarchy was eliminated adhering to the Russian Transformation in 1917, and also the Russian SFSR became the globe’s very first constitutionally socialist state.

Adhering to a civil war, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with 3 other republics, as its largest and the major component. The country went through a period of quick industrialisation at the expenditure of millions of lives. The Soviet Union played a definitive duty in the Allied success in World War II and became a superpower and rival to the USA throughout the Cold War.

The Soviet age saw some of one of the most considerable technical achievements of the 20th century, consisting of the globe’s first human-made satellite as well as the introducing of the very first human into area.

Complying with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent Russian SFSR relabelled itself the Russian Federation. In the aftermath of the constitutional situation of 1993, a new constitution was adopted, and also Russia has given that been regulated as a federal semi-presidential republic. Considering that his election in 2000, Vladimir Putin has controlled Russia’s political system and also Russia has experienced autonomous backsliding, changing right into a tyrannical state.