Russia, the biggest country in the world, is located in the eastern part of Europe and the northern part of Asia. It occupies 17, 075, 400 square kilometers. ¾ of its territory is presented by plains, 42% covered by forests and 40% used for agricultural needs. Russia is a country of 3 oceans (The Atlantic, The Arctic and The Pacific), 13 seas (with The Baltic, The Black, The Japanese among them), numerous rivers and lakes. Russian climate differs from maritime in the north-west to continental in Siberia and monsoon in the Far East. So temperatures do: average January temperature skips from –1 to –50 degrees centigrade, July – from +1 to 25 degrees. In many regions of Siberia and the Far East one can find perennial frozen grounds. Russian industrialists can boast of rich natural resources of their homeland: oil, coal, aluminium, diamonds, gold etc. 3/4 of the country’s minerals and oils is concentrated in Siberia and the Far East. In the Urals half of the world’s variety of minerals can be found.

Russia is a multinational state: except Russians, there are 100 different nationalities to consider Russia to be their homeland. One may count 997 cities and towns on the map of Russia, including capital of the country, Moscow, and Saint-Petersburg, the biggest northern megapolis in the world.

Russian nationality formed in the 9th-12th centuries AD in Kievan Russia. Adoption of Christianity, encouraged by prince Vladimir in 988, favoured unification of people. In 13 c. Russia resisted German and Swedish aggression from the west and Tatar-Mongol invasion from the east. This invasion finished with Tatar-Mongol yoke, which lasted for 250 years and caused cultural, political and economical progress of the Russian land. Tsar Ivan III overthrew it in 1480. Period between the 14th and the16th centuries was a time when centralized Russian state was formed, with Moscow as its capital. The 16th century was marked by the reign of the tsar Ivan IV Vassilyevich, nicknamed Ivan the Terrible for his cruel temper and repressions to which society had been subjected at his era. But, nevertheless, the 16th and following it the 17th century were marked by the growth of Russian lands and forming of multinational state. Enormous contribution into the history of Russia as well as that of the world was made by tsar Peter the Great in the early 18th  century. His reforms furthered rapid development of Russian army, fleet, education and industry. To say more, it was him who founded St. Petersburg and transferred the capital from Moscow to this new city. At the time of Peter the Great Russia became an empire. This empire could have existed much longer than 200 years, but Vladimir Lenin, world-known Bolshevik leader, intended to light the fire of all-world socialist revolution in Russia. He succeeded in doing it in Russia in October 1917, but the fire didn’t spread to the rest of the world. The country that replaced Russian empire was the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics (USSR) that consisted of 15 republics and occupied 1/6 part of Earth’s dry land. Russia became a nucleus of this union. The USSR played a significant role in the fight against Nazi during bitter days of the World War 2.  The USSR existed for 69 years and in 1991 after political, economical and social crisis it broke down to different independent countries: Ukraine, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan and others. The country you are planning to visit is nowadays called “Russian Federation”.