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Last Minute Tips Before you Travel to Russia
- Time Zone: GMT/UTC +3; GMT/UTC +2; GMT/UTC +4; GMT/UTC +5; GMT/UTC +8; GMT/UTC +10; GMT/UTC +12
- Electricity: 220V, 50 Hz (bring an adapter/transformer for your hair drier, laptop, cellullar phone etc.)
- Currency: Rouble (R)
- Country Dialing Code: 7
Must See - Properties on UNESCO World Heritage List
- Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments
- Kizhi Pogost
- Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow
- Cultural and Historic Ensemble of the Solovetsky Islands
- Historic Monuments of Novgorod and Surroundings
- White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal
- Architectural Ensemble of the Trinity Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad
- Church of the Ascension, Kolomenskoye
- Virgin Komi Forests
- Lake Baikal
- Volcanoes of Kamchatka
- Golden Mountains of Altai
- Western Caucasus
- Curonian Spit
- Ensemble of the Ferrapontov Monastery
- Historic and Architectural Complex of the Kazan Kremlin
- Central Sikhote-Alin
- Citadel, Ancient City and Fortress Buildings of Derbent
- Uvs Nuur Basin
- Ensemble of the Novodevichy Convent
- Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve
- Historical Centre of the City of Yaroslavl
- Struve Geodetic Arc
Russia
Location
Northern Asia (that part west of the Urals is included with Europe), bordering the Arctic Ocean, between Europe and the North Pacific Ocean
Capital
Moscow
Population
143,420,309 (July 2005 est.)
Regions
48 oblasts (oblastey, singular - oblast), 21 republics (respublik, singular - respublika), 9 autonomous okrugs (avtonomnykh okrugov, singular - avtonomnyy okrug), 7 krays (krayev, singular - kray), 2 federal cities (singular - gorod), and 1 autonomous oblast (avtonomnaya oblast')
: oblasts: Amur (Blagoveshchensk), Arkhangel'sk, Astrakhan', Belgorod, Bryansk, Chelyabinsk, Chita, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kamchatka (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy), Kemerovo, Kirov, Kostroma, Kurgan, Kursk, Leningrad, Lipetsk, Magadan, Moscow, Murmansk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Orel, Penza, Pskov, Rostov, Ryazan', Sakhalin (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), Samara, Saratov, Smolensk, Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), Tambov, Tomsk, Tula, Tver', Tyumen', Ul'yanovsk, Vladimir, Volgograd, Vologda, Voronezh, Yaroslavl'
: republics: Adygeya (Maykop), Altay (Gorno-Altaysk), Bashkortostan (Ufa), Buryatiya (Ulan-Ude), Chechnya (Groznyy), Chuvashiya (Cheboksary), Dagestan (Makhachkala), Ingushetiya (Magas), Kabardino-Balkariya (Nal'chik), Kalmykiya (Elista), Karachayevo-Cherkesiya (Cherkessk), Kareliya (Petrozavodsk), Khakasiya (Abakan), Komi (Syktyvkar), Mariy-El (Yoshkar-Ola), Mordoviya (Saransk), Sakha [Yakutiya] (Yakutsk), North Ossetia (Vladikavkaz), Tatarstan (Kazan'), Tyva (Kyzyl), Udmurtiya (Izhevsk)
: autonomous okrugs: Aga Buryat (Aginskoye), Chukotka (Anadyr'), Evenk (Tura), Khanty-Mansi, Koryak (Palana), Nenets (Nar'yan-Mar), Taymyr [Dolgano-Nenets] (Dudinka), Ust'-Orda Buryat (Ust'-Ordynskiy), Yamalo-Nenets (Salekhard)
: krays: Altay (Barnaul), Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Permskiy, Primorskiy (Vladivostok), Stavropol'
: federal cities: Moscow (Moskva), Saint Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg)
: autonomous oblast: Yevrey [Jewish] (Birobidzhan)
note: administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative centers (exceptions have the administrative center name following in parentheses)
Climate
ranges from steppes in the south through humid continental in much of European Russia; subarctic in Siberia to tundra climate in the polar north; winters vary from cool along Black Sea coast to frigid in Siberia; summers vary from warm in the steppes to cool along Arctic coast
Ethnic groups
Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 2%, Bashkir 1.2%, Chuvash 1.1%, other or unspecified 12.1% (2002 census)
Religions
Russian Orthodox, Muslim, other
Languages
Russian, many minority languages
Government type
federation
Background
Founded in the 12th century, the Principality of Muscovy, was able to emerge from over 200 years of Mongol domination (13th-15th centuries) and to gradually conquer and absorb surrounding principalities. In the early 17th century, a new Romanov Dynasty continued this policy of expansion across Siberia to the Pacific. Under PETER I (ruled 1682-1725), hegemony was extended to the Baltic Sea and the country was renamed the Russian Empire. During the 19th century, more territorial acquisitions were made in Europe and Asia. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the imperial household. The Communists under Vladimir LENIN seized power soon after and formed the USSR. The brutal rule of and threatens to destabilize the North Caucasus region. Iosif STALIN (1928-53) strengthened Russian dominance of the Soviet Union at a cost of tens of millions of lives. The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985-91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize Communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into 15 independent republics. Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and market economy to replace the strict social, political, and economic controls of the Communist period. While some progress has been made on the economic front, recent years have seen a recentralization of power under Vladimir PUTIN and an erosion in nascent democratic institutions. A determined guerrilla conflict still plagues Russia in Chechnya and threatens to destabilize the North Caucasus region.
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