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• Russia is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia
• Russia is the largest country in the world by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries
• Russia is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country
• Russia is a highly urbanized country including 16 population centres with over a million inhabitants
• The capital and largest city of Russia is Moscow
• Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city and its cultural capital
• East Slavs


  A recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE
• Kievan Rus'


  The first East Slavic state, which arose in the 9th century
• In 988, Kievan Rus' adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire
• Grand Duchy of Moscow

  Grew to become the Tsardom of Russia
• By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history
• With the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state
• Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent
• At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front
• With the onset of the Cold War, the Soviet Union competed with the United States for global ideological influence
• The Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space
• In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the independent Russian Federation
• A new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system
• Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin, under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and a shift towards authoritarianism
• Russia has been militarily involved in a number of conflicts in former Soviet states and other countries, including its war with Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014 from neighbouring Ukraine, followed by the further annexation of four other regions in 2022 during an ongoing invasion
• Internationally, Russia ranks among the lowest in measurements of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press; the country also has high levels of perceived corruption
• Russia's advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world, relying on its vast mineral and energy resources; the world's second largest for oil production and natural gas production
• Russia possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and has the third-highest military expenditure
• The country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; a member state of the G20, SCO, BRICS, APEC, OSCE, and WTO; and the leading member state of post-Soviet organisations such as CIS, CSTO, and EAEU/EEU
• Russia is home to 30 UNESCO World Heritage Sites
• Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; a member state of the G20, SCO, BRICS, APEC, OSCE, and WTO; and the leading member state of post-Soviet organisations such as CIS, CSTO, and EAEU/EEU
• Etymology of the name "Russia"


  The English name "Russia" first appeared in the 14th century, borrowed from Medieval Latin "Russia", used in the 11th century and frequently in 12th-century British sources, in turn derived from "Russi", 'the Russians' and the suffix "-ia"
• In modern historiography, this state is usually denoted as "Kievan Rus'" after its capital city
• Another Medieval Latin name for Rus'

  Ruthenia
• Words in Russian which translate to "Russians" in English

  • русский (russkiy) - refers to ethnic Russians
  • российский (rossiiskiy) - denotes Russian citizens regardless of ethnicity
  • россиянин (rossiianyn) - "Russian" in the sense of citizen of the Russian state
• According to the Primary Chronicle, the word Rus' is derived from the Rus' people, who were a Swedish tribe, and where the three original members of the Rurikid dynasty came from
• The Finnish word for Swedes, "ruotsi", has the same origin
• Later archaeological studies mostly confirmed this theory
• The first human settlement on Russia dates back to the Oldowan period in the early Lower Paleolithic
• About 2 million years ago, representatives of Homo erectus migrated to the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia
• Flint tools, some 1.5 million years old, have been discovered in the North Caucasus
• Radiocarbon dated specimens from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains estimate the oldest Denisovan specimen lived 195–122,700 years ago
• Fossils of Denny, an archaic human hybrid that was half Neanderthal and half Denisovan, and lived some 90,000 years ago, was also found within the latter cave
• Russia was home to some of the last surviving Neanderthals, from about 45,000 years ago, found in Mezmaiskaya cave
• The first trace of an early modern human in Russia dates back to 45,000 years, in Western Siberia