Russia (New Union)

Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ( listen); Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə]  ( listen)), is a republic of the  located in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects located within 8 autonomous republics. Russia shares borders with the following countries (from northwest to southeast): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan (by the Sea of Okhotsk) and the United States (by the Bering Strait).

At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is by far the largest republic within the Soviet Union, covering more than a ninth of the Earth's land area. Russia is also the most populous republic in the USSR with 142 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 11 time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is considered an energy superpower. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.

History
The Russian Federation, one of the oldest members of the Soviet Union, was one of the strongest proposers for the continuation of the Soviet Union at the turbulent beiginning of the ninties. It willingly gave up direct control of its capital, Moscow, in favor of the Soviet Union in January, 2010. It has relocated its capital to Leningrad, which has, after a referendum in 1994, retained its name. It is the strongest member of the USSR, retaining significant political influence both within and without the Union. Through dialogue with Chechen leaders and proponents of an islamic state in the Caucasus, it has officially recognized the Islamic Republic of the Caucasus in late 2007.

Economy
Russia is known as an energy superpower. The country has the world's largest natural gas reserves, the 8th largest oil reserves, and the second largest coal reserves. Russia is the world's leading natural gas exporter and leading natural gas producer, while also the second largest oil exporter and largest oil producer, though Russia interchanges the latter status with Saudi Arabia from time to time.

Russia is the 4th largest electricity generator in the world and the 5th largest renewable energy producer, the latter due to the well-developed hydroelectricity production in the country. Large cascades of hydropower plants are built in European Russia along big rivers like Volga. The Asian part of Russia also features a number of major hydropower stations, however the gigantic hydroelectric potential of Siberia and the Russian Far East largely remains unexploited.

Russia was the first country to develop civilian nuclear reactor and to introduce the first nuclear power plant. Currently, Russia is the 4th largest nuclear energy producer. Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation manages all the nuclear plants in Russia. Nuclear energy is rapidly developing in Russia, with the aim of increasing the total share of nuclear energy from current 16.9% to 23% by 2020. The Russian government plans to allocate 127 billion rubles ($5.42 billion) to a federal program dedicated to the next generation of nuclear energy technology. About 1 trillion rubles ($42.7 billion) is to be allocated from the federal budget to nuclear power and industry development before 2015. Russia remains among the world leaders in nuclear technology and is a member of ITER international fusion reactor project.

The total area of cultivated land in Russia was estimated as 1,237,294 sq km in 2005, the fourth largest in the world. Unlike most other countries, Russia has large reserves of unused arable land, in part due to the drop in agricultural production during the economy crisis of 1990s, when the area planted to grains dropped by 25%. This was accompanied by a severe decline of livestock inventories.

In 1999-2009, however, Russia's agriculture demonstrated steady growth, and the country turned from a grain importer to the third largest grain exporter after EU and U. S. in 2009. The production of meat has grown from 6,813,000 tonnes in 1999 to 9,331,000 tonnes in 2008, and continues to grow.

This restoration of agriculture was supported by successful farm credit policy of the government, helping both individual farmers and large privatized corporate farms. While large individual farms and corporate farms concentrate mainly on the production of grain (including for export), as well as husbandry products, small private household plots produce most of the country's yield of potatoes, vegetables and fruits.