| Russian Federation Российская Федерация Timeline: Russians in America | ||||||
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| Anthem: Государственный гимн Российской Федерации "The State Anthem of the Russian Federation" |
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| Capital | Moscow | |||||
| Largest | Petrograd | |||||
| Official languages | Russian | |||||
| Demonym | Russian | |||||
| Government | Federal semi-presidential constitutional republic under a centralist authoritarian government | |||||
| - | President | Vladimir Putin | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | Dmitry Medvedev | ||||
| Legislature | Federal Assembly | |||||
| - | Upper house | Federation Council | ||||
| - | Lower house | State Duma | ||||
| Formation | ||||||
| - | Kievan Rus' | 879 | ||||
| - | Vladimir-Suzdal | 1157 | ||||
| - | Grand Duchy of Moscow | 1263 | ||||
| - | Tsardom of Russia | 16 January 1547 | ||||
| - | Russian Empire | 2 November 1721 | ||||
| - | Monarchy abolished | 15 March 1917 | ||||
| - | Soviet Union | 30 December 1922 | ||||
| - | Declaration of State | 12 June 1990 | ||||
| - | Russian Federation | 12 December 1991 | ||||
| - | Current constitution | 12 December 1993 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2022 estimate | 145,478,100 | ||||
| Currency | Russian ruble (RUB) |
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| Drives on the | right | |||||
Russia (Russian: Россия), or the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация), is a country spanning Eurasia. It borders seventeen sovereign states.
The East Slavs emerged as a recognisable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The medieval state of Kievan Rus' arose in the 9th century. In 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Rus' ultimately disintegrated, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow rose during the 15th century. By the 18th century, the nation had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to evolve into the modern state of the Russian Empire, the third-largest empire in the world. After the Napoleonic Wars, it began declining as it slowed down in industrialisation and liberalisation, compared to the other European powers. In 1905, a revolution established a de-jure constitutional monarchy, although it was unofficially still an autocratic society.
The monarchy was abolished following the Russian Civil War in 1917, and the Russian Soviet Republic became the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following a civil war, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other republics, as its largest and the principal constituent. The country underwent a period of rapid industrialisation at the expense of millions of lives. The Soviet Union emerged as a superpower and rival to the United States during the Cold War. Following the collapse of the regime in 1991, the Russian Federation experienced a brief period of democratisation, although since the election of Vladimir Putin in 2000, the nation has been experiencing a shift in democratic backsliding.