RUSSIA The Russian people The 2010 census recorded 142,856,536 people living in Russia More than three-quarters are ethnic Russians with the remaining one-quarter representing 160 different Slav and non-Slav ethnic groups Russia’s population density is 22 people per square mile 8 people per sq km because the country is so big By comparison the population density of Britain is 684 people per square mile 264 people per sq km The official language is Russian and it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet Many of the different nationalities speak their own officially recognized local languages which they write in their own alphabet or in the Latin alphabet used to write English and other European languages From 1922 91 Russia was one of 15 republics inside the USSR or Soviet Union When the union collapsed many Russians found themselves living in what to them were foreign countries They formed about one-third of the population in each of the republics of Kazakhstan Estonia and Latvia Similarly many Ukrainians Armenians The Russian people Chechen 1 Chuvash 1 Bashkir 1 1 Ukrainian 1 4 Tatar 3 7 Other and unspecified 14 1 Russian 77 7 Including Armenian Avar Belarussian German Jewish Kazakh Moldavian and Udmurt Source 2010 Census Four out of every five people who live in the Russian Federation are ethnic Russians The remaining one-fifth is drawn from 160 different ethnic groups some numbering no more than 10,000 people Kazakhs and others found themselves in Russia Some of the former Soviet republics such as These Russian women from a village near St Petersburg celebrate the traditional festival of Shrovetide to mark the end of winter and the beginning of the Christian festival of Lent They are dressed traditionally and compete to knock each other off the beam
INTRODUCTION The Trans-Siberian Railway starts in Moscow and ends in Vladivostok on the Pacific coastline Train passengers travel through seven time zones and spend more than six days on board Construction of the railroad began in 1891 and was completed in 1916 Kyrgyzstan tried to keep their Russian population because they needed its skills Most however discriminated against Russian minorities forcing them to meet local language and residency requirements to gain citizenship As a result many Russians left the former republics and emigrated to Russia itself Urban and rural Seventy-four percent of the Russian population lives in cities the rest in the countryside The capital Moscow is home to 11 6 million people St Petersburg formerly known as Leningrad has a population of 4 6 million while 10 other cities all have populations over 1 million The Russian population is not evenly spread across the country with around 100 million people living in European Russia and only 40 million in Siberia Transportation The quickest way to travel in Russia is by air since distances between the major cities are vast The main carrier Aeroflot International Russian Airlines competes with three other smaller international airlines A series of regional babyflot airlines fly domestic routes The high speed Sokol falcon rail link connects St Petersburg to Moscow while the world-famous Trans-Siberian Railway connects Moscow with Vladivostok 5,759 miles 9,288 km and six days four hours away to the east Moscow has an excellent metro system and other cities are served by streetcar trolleybus and bus services In rural areas car ownership is low and people rely more on efficient bus networks Changing Russia Modern Russia is changing rapidly It only emerged as an independent nation in 1991 and has since undergone a massive political social and economic revolution that has affected every aspect of people’s lives Russia was once part of a major world empire and is now struggling to find a new role Its people are facing a very different world from the one lived in by their ancestors 11
CHAPTER 2 History The history of Russia begins in 862 CE when the Slav peoples of Novgorod a city in northwest modern Russia invited Rurik a Varangian or Viking originally from Scandinavia to rule over them It is probable that the Viking Varangians rather than the Slavs of Novgorod were the original Rus but the new rulers soon married into the local Slav population and adopted their language and customs 12 Kiev and Christianity Twenty years later the Varangian prince Oleg of Novgorod occupied Kiev now capital of Ukraine and made it the first capital of the Rus At this time the Rus lived in a long strip of land in what is now Russia Belarus and Ukraine Around 988 Prince Vladimir of Kiev converted to Orthodox Christianity Conversion also brought literacy to the Rus because the Bible was translated into a Slav language and written down in the Cyrillic alphabet still used in Russia today The Mongols The unified state of Kiev collapsed in 1054 and was succeeded by a series of small disunited states In 1240 the Mongol or Tatar armies of Batu Khan Genghis Khan’s grandson conquered the Rus lands ruling them for more than 200 years as part of a vast Eurasian empire known as the Golden Horde The Tatars exploited the Rus as slaves recruiting them for their armies and exacting tribute from them each year Although the Golden Horde failed to conquer Novgorod the city paid tribute to the Mongols to keep its independence In 1240 Prince Alexander of Novgorod defeated the Swedes on the Neva River hence his later Alexander Nevsky Prince of Novgorod c 1220 63 was renowned for his military victories in medieval Rus He was canonized in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1547
EARLY RULERS OF RUSSIA Grand Princes of Moscow 1263 1303 Daniel 1303 25 Yuri 1325 41 Ivan I Moneybags 1341 53 Simeon the Proud 1353 59 Ivan II the Meek 1359 89 Dmitri Donskoi 1389 1425 Vasili I 1425 62 Vasili II House of Rurik 1462 1505 Ivan III the Great 1505 33 Vasili III 1533 84 Ivan IV the Terrible 1584 98 Fyodor I name Nevsky and built up his country as an independent nation Alexander was later canonized and has since become a great Russian hero The rise of Muscovy In 1263 Alexander Nevsky’s son Daniel became the first Grand Prince of Muscovy At that time Muscovy was a minor Russian state In 1328 the Mongols recognized his son Ivan I as the most senior of the various Russian princes while the Orthodox Church established Moscow as the center of Russian religion Over the next two centuries Muscovy expanded across central and northern Russia Ivan III the first of three Russian rulers to be called the Great started to call himself by the Roman title of czar or Caesar and claimed the inheritance of the former Orthodox Byzantine Empire adopting its two-headed eagle as his emblem He captured Novgorod by 1478 and ceased to pay tribute to the Tatars in 1480 His grandson Ivan the Terrible has gone down in history as a brutal deranged tyrant HISTORY He inherited the throne in 1533 at the age of only three and was crowned in 1547 as czar of all Russia the first ruler to bear this title He did much to reform and expand his state In later life however he unleashed an orgy of violence against his boyars or nobles and those he suspected of plotting against him killing tens of thousands in Novgorod and elsewhere Ivan the Terrible came to the throne of Russia in 1533 and ruled until his death in 1584 At first he was a wise ruler and reformer but later he waged war against his own subjects massacring many people 13
