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General Russia Information

Formerly the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Russia has been an independent nation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. As part of the Soviet Union, it was called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, or the Russian Federation.

Geographical Russia Information

With an area of 6,592,800 square miles (17,075,300 square kilometers), it is the world's largest country, almost twice the size of either China or the United States. Covering much of Eastern Europe as well as the whole of Northern Asia, Russia extends nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere. It stretches some 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) along the Arctic Circle and from 1,250 to 1,800 miles (2,000 to 2,900 kilometers) north to south. Its most characteristic landscape is a rolling to flat plain. Two such plains are divided by the Ural Mountains that form the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia. In contrast, eastern Siberia is hilly to mountainous tableland. There are active volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands.

Demographical Russia Information

More than 80 percent of the 149 million people who live in Russia are ethnic Russians. There are also some 75 ethnic groups. Almost three quarters of the people live in urban areas. The chief cities are St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhni Novgorod, and the capital, Moscow, which was also the capital of both the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union.

Russia Information on Climate and Weather

Because of its size Russia displays both monotony and diversity. As with its topography, its climates, vegetation, and soils span vast distances. The climates of both European and Asian Russia are continental except for the tundra and the extreme southeast. Great ranges of temperature are typical. In winter temperatures get colder both from south to north and from west to east. Summers can be quite hot and humid, even in Siberia.

Russia also has low annual precipitation that almost everywhere averages less than 20 inches (51 centimeters) and peaks in summer usually in July or August. The continental interiors are the driest areas.

From north to south the East European Plain is clad sequentially in tundra, coniferous forest (taiga), mixed forest, broadleaf forest, grassland (steppe), and semidesert (fringing the Caspian Sea ) as the changes in vegetation reflect the changes in climate. Siberia supports a similar sequence but lacks the mixed forest. Most of Siberia is taiga. Soils vary from rich, black loams in the steppe to very acidic podzols in the taiga to bog types in the tundra and Siberian swamps.

Political Russia Information

The caital of Russia is Moscow - the barometer and nucleus of the changes sweeping through Russia. Nowhere are Russia 's contrasts more apparent than here - ancient monasteries and ultra-modern monoliths stand side by side, and New Russian millionaires and poverty-stricken pensioners walk the same streets.

Moscow 's origins as a symbol of Russian spiritual and political power go back 850 years. It reflects Russia 's state of flux in its day-to-day life, and when the winds of change start blowing, they blow through Moscow first.

Another important city in Russia 's political and cultural life is St. Petersburg , founded in 1703 by Peter the Great. It was Russia 's capital during the time of the Russian Empire, until after the October revolution, when Moscow was restored as the capital by the Bolsheviks. St.Petersburg remains an influential city today in terms of economy, trade, cultrue and government.

Russian Information on Government

Multinational Russia includes 24 minority republics, four autonomous oblasts (provinces), four autonomous okrug s (districts), six kray s (regions), and 49 oblasts. The people are governed by a parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies.

In 1991 the new post of president was created to head the executive branch and to be elected by popular vote. In elections held in June of that year Boris Yeltsin became the first democratically elected leader of the republic. He outlined a plan to give greater political and economic authority to the federation and to diminish the role of the central government. Yeltsin's defiance of the coup that briefly deposed Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August inspired a popular uprising that led to the unraveling of the old central controls. The Soviet Union officially disbanded in December 1991, Russia became an independent state officially known as the Russian Federation, and it joined with ten of the other former Soviet republics to form the new Commonwealth of Independent States

Useful Information on Arriving in Russia

Upon arrival in Russia, you first pass through passport control, where a border guard will carefully examine your passport and visa, and retain one sheet of your Russian visa. You can speed your transit through passport control by bringing along a photocopy of your visa and handing this, along with the original, to the border guard.

After retrieving your luggage, you fill out a customs form that you must keep until departure, when you will be asked to present it again (along with a second, identical form noting any changes). You may import free of duty and without special license any articles intended for personal use, including clothing, food, tobacco and cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, perfume, sports equipment, and camera equipment. One video camera and one laptop computer per person are allowed. Importing weapons and ammunition, as well as opium, hashish, and pipes for smoking them, is prohibited. The punishment for carrying illegal substances is severe.

You should write down on the customs form the exact amount of currency you are carrying (in cash as well as traveler's checks); you may enter the country with any amount of money, but you cannot leave the country with more money than you had when you entered. You should also include on your customs form any jewelry (particularly silver, gold, and amber) as well as any electronic goods (cameras, personal tape recorders, computers, etc.) you have. It is important to include any valuable items on the form to ensure that you will be allowed to export them, but be aware that you are expected to take them with you, so you cannot leave them behind as gifts.

If an item included on your customs form is stolen, you should obtain a police report to avoid being questioned upon departure. (You are allowed to bring into the country up to $2,000 of consumer items for personal use and gifts. But customs at the airport has been enforcing this rule sporadically at best, and will not likely challenge you on this front unless you have an excessive amount of luggage.)