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Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world, and extends across eleven time zones, sharing land borders with fourteen countries. With over 140 million people, Russia is the most populous country in Europe and the ninth-most populous in the world. It is a highly urbanised country, with sixteen of its urban areas having more than 1 million inhabitants. Moscow, the most populous metropolitan area in Europe, is the capital and largest city of Russia, while Saint Petersburg is its second-largest city and cultural centre.
Human settlement on the territory of modern Russia dates back to the Lower Paleolithic. The East Slavs emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated; the Grand Duchy of Moscow led the unification of Russian lands, leading to the proclamation of the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent. The Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s, amidst the deaths of millions under Joseph Stalin's rule, and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for ideological dominance and international influence. The Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.
In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the Russian Federation. Following the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, the Soviet system of government was abolished and a new constitution was adopted, which established a federation semi-presidential system. Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin, under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and become an authoritarianism dictatorship. Russia has been militarily involved in a number of conflicts in former Soviet states and other countries, including its war with Georgia in 2008 and its war with Ukraine since 2014. The latter has involved the internationally unrecognised of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea in 2014 and four other regions in 2022, during an ongoing invasion.
Russia is generally considered a great power and is a regional power, possessing the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and having the third-highest military expenditure in the world. It has a high-income economy, which is the eleventh-largest in the world by nominal GDP and fourth-largest by PPP, relying on its vast mineral and energy resources, which rank as the second-largest in the world for oil and natural gas production. However, Russia ranks very low in international measurements of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press, and also has high levels of perceived corruption. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as well as a member state of the SCO and several other intergovernmental organisations. Russia is home to 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
There are several words in Russian which translate to "Russians" in English. The noun and adjective refers to ethnic Russians. The adjective denotes Russian citizens regardless of ethnicity. The same applies to the more recently coined noun , in the sense of citizen of the Russian state.
The oldest endonyms used were Rus () and the "Russian land" (). (2025). 9785955105277, ИД ЯСК. ISBN 9785955105277 According to the Primary Chronicle, the word Rus is derived from the Rus' people, who were a Swedes tribe, and from where the three original members of the Rurikid dynasty came from. The Finnish language word for Swedes, ruotsi, has the same origin.. In modern historiography, the early medieval East Slavs state is usually referred to as Kievan Rus', named after its capital city. Another Medieval Latin name for Rus was Ruthenia.Aleksandr Vasilevich Nazarenko (2025). 9785785900851, Languages of the Rus' culture. ISBN 9785785900851
In Russian, the current name of the country, italic=no (Rossiya), comes from the Byzantine Greek name italic=no (Rosía). The name italic=no (Rosiya) was first attested in 1387. The name appeared in Russian sources in the 15th century and began to replace the vernacular Rus during the rise of Moscow as the centre of a unified Russian state. However, until the end of the 17th century, the country was more often referred to by its inhabitants as Rus, the "Russian land" (), or the "Muscovite state" (), among other variations. (2025). 9781538119426, Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538119426 (1998). 9781855218710, Ashgate. ISBN 9781855218710
In 1721, Peter the Great proclaimed the Russian Empire (). The name Rossiya was used as the common designation for the multinational Russian Empire and then for the modern Russian state. Rossiya is distinguished from the ethnonym russkiy, as it refers to a supranational identity, including ethnic Russians. After the Russian Revolution and the proclamation of the Russian SFSR in 1918, the "Russian" in the title of the state was Rossiyskaya, rather than Russkaya, as the former denoted a multinational state, while the latter had ethnic dimensions. In modern Russian, the name Rus is still used in poetry or prose to refer to either the older Russia or an imagined essence of Russia.
The first trace of an early modern human in Russia dates back to 45,000 years, in Western Siberia. The discovery of high concentration cultural remains of Human, from at least 40,000 years ago, was found at Kostyonki–Borshchyovo, and at Sungir, dating back to 34,600 years ago—both in European Russia. Humans reached Arctic Russia at least 40,000 years ago, in Mamontovaya Kurya. Ancient North Eurasian populations from Siberia genetically similar to Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Ancient Native Americans and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers.
The Kurgan hypothesis places the Volga-Dnieper region of southern Russia and Ukraine as the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and Russia spread Yamnaya culture ancestry and Indo-European languages across large parts of Eurasia. Nomadic pastoralism developed in the Pontic–Caspian steppe beginning in the Chalcolithic. Remnants of these steppe civilisations were discovered in places such as Ipatovo kurgan, Sintashta, Arkaim, and Pazyryk burials, which bear the earliest known traces of horses in warfare. The genetic makeup of speakers of the Uralic language family in northern Europe was shaped by migration from Siberia that began at least 3,500 years ago.
In the 3rd to 4th centuries AD, the Goths kingdom of Oium existed in southern Russia, which was later overrun by Huns. Between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD, the Bosporan Kingdom, which was a Hellenistic polity that succeeded the Greek colonies, was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes such as the Huns and Pannonian Avars. The Khazars, who were of Turkic peoples, ruled the steppes between the Caucasus in the south, to the east past the Volga river basin, and west as far as Kyiv on the Dnieper river until the 10th century. After them came the Pechenegs who created a large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks.Carter V. Findley, The Turks in World History (Oxford University Press, 2004)
The ancestors of Russians are among the Slavic tribes that separated from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who appeared in the northeastern part of Europe years ago. The East Slavs gradually settled western Russia (approximately between modern Moscow and Saint-Petersburg) in two waves: one moving from Kyiv towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod and Rostov. Prior to Slavic migration, that territory was populated by Finno-Ugrian peoples. From the 7th century onwards, the incoming East Slavs slowly assimilated the native Finno-Ugrians.Ed. Timothy Reuter, The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 494-497. .
In the 10th to 11th centuries, Kievan Rus' became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantine Empire, and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda. The age of feudalism and decentralisation had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of the Rurik dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus' collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, the Novgorod Republic in the north, and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west. By the 12th century, Kiev lost its pre-eminence and Kievan Rus' had fragmented into different principalities. Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky sacked Kiev in 1169 and made Vladimir his base, (1995). 9780140513264, Penguin. ISBN 9780140513264 leading to political power being shifted to the north-east.
Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky, Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva in 1240, as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle on the Ice in 1242.
Kievan Rus' finally fell to the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240, which resulted in the sacking of Kiev and other cities, as well as the death of a major part of the population. The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of the Golden Horde, which ruled over Russia for the next two centuries. Only the Novgorod Republic escaped foreign occupation after it agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols. Galicia-Volhynia would later be absorbed by Lithuania and Poland, while the Novgorod Republic continued to prosper in the north. In the northeast, the Byzantine-Slavic traditions of Kievan Rus' were adapted to form the Russian autocratic state.
Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow, the united army of Russian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed its parent duchy and surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod.
Ivan III ("the Great") threw off the control of the Golden Horde and gained sovereignty over the ethnically Russian lands; he later adopted the title of sovereign of all Russia. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow Third Rome of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, and made the Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Russia's, coat-of-arms. Vasili III united all of Russia by annexing the last few independent Russian states in the early 16th century. (2025). 9781317892755, Routledge. ISBN 9781317892755
Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of the Cossacks. In 1654, the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian tsar, Alexis, whose acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War. Ultimately, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper, leaving the eastern part, (Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev) under Russian rule. In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of vast Siberia continued, hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian River Routes, and by the mid-17th century, there were Russian settlements in eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov became the first European to navigate through the Bering Strait.
The officers who pursued Napoleon into Western Europe brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia, and attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825. At the end of the conservative reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), a zenith period of Russia's power and influence in Europe, was disrupted by defeat in the Crimean War.
The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Russia. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists. The reign of his son Alexander III (1881–1894) was less liberal but more peaceful.
An alternative socialist establishment co-existed, the Petrograd Soviet, wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called soviets. The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country instead of resolving it, and eventually, the October Revolution, led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and gave full governing power to the soviets, leading to the creation of the world's first socialist state. The Russian Civil War broke out between the anti-communist White movement and the Bolsheviks with its Red Army. In the aftermath of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers of World War I, Bolshevist Russia surrendered most of its western territories, which hosted 34% of its population, 54% of its industries, 32% of its agricultural land, and roughly 90% of its coal mines. The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-communist forces. In the meantime, both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror. By the end of the violent civil war, Russia's economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged, and as many as 10 million perished during the war, mostly civilians. Millions became White émigrés, and the Russian famine of 1921–1922 claimed up to five million victims.
Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika was designated to take charge. Eventually Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country's dictator by the 1930s. Leon Trotsky, the main proponent of world revolution, was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, and Stalin's idea of Socialism in One Country became the official line. The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge.
Eventually, some 5 million Red Army troops were captured by the Nazis; the latter deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet POWs, and a vast number of civilians, as the "Hunger Plan" sought to fulfil Generalplan Ost. Although the Wehrmacht had considerable early success, their attack was halted in the Battle of Moscow. Subsequently, the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943, and then in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. Another German failure was the Siege of Leningrad, in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941 and 1944 by German and Finnish forces, and suffered starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendered. Soviet forces steamrolled through Eastern and Central Europe in 1944–1945 and captured Berlin in May 1945. In August 1945, the Red Army invaded Manchuria and ousted the Japanese from Northeast Asia, contributing to the Allied victory over Japan.
The 1941–1945 period of World War II is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union, along with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four of Allied powers in World War II, and later became the Four Policemen, which was the foundation of the United Nations Security Council. During the war, Soviet civilian and military death were about 26–27 million, accounting for about half of all World War II casualties. The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation, which caused the Soviet famine of 1946–1947. However, at the expense of a large sacrifice, the Soviet Union emerged as a global superpower.
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, thus starting the Space Age. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth, aboard the Vostok 1 crewed spacecraft on Cosmonautics Day.
By 1991, economic and political turmoil began to boil over as the Baltic states chose to secede from the Soviet Union. On 17 March, a referendum was held, in which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favour of changing the Soviet Union into a renewed federation. In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first directly elected President in Russian history when he was elected President of the Russian SFSR. In August 1991, a coup d'état attempt by members of Gorbachev's government, directed against Gorbachev and aimed at preserving the Soviet Union, instead led to the end of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On 25 December 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, along with contemporary Russia, fourteen other post-Soviet states emerged.
In late 1993, tensions between Yeltsin and the Russian parliament culminated in a constitutional crisis which ended violently through military force. During the crisis, Yeltsin was backed by Western governments, and over 100 people were killed.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia assumed responsibility for settling the latter's external debts. In 1992, most consumer price controls were eliminated, causing extreme inflation and significantly devaluing the rouble. High budget deficits coupled with increasing capital flight and inability to pay back debts, caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis, which resulted in a further GDP decline.
Putin won a second presidential term in 2004. High oil prices and a rise in foreign investment saw the Russian economy and living standards improve significantly. Putin's rule increased stability, while transforming Russia into an authoritarian state. In 2008, Putin took the post of prime minister, while Dmitry Medvedev was elected President for one term, to hold onto power despite legal ; this period has been described as a "tandemocracy". Following a diplomatic crisis with neighbouring Georgia, the Russo-Georgian War took place during 1–12 August 2008, resulting in Russia recognising two separatist states in the territories that it occupies in Georgia. It was the first European war of the 21st century. The 2008 constitutional amendments saw the terms of the president extend to six years and the lower house (State Duma) to five years. Putin then went on to win the 2012 presidential election, which fueled the "Snow Revolution" protests.
In a major escalation of the conflict, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The invasion marked the largest conventional war in Europe since World War II, and was met with international condemnation, as well as expanded sanctions against Russia.
As a result, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March, and was suspended from the United Nations Human Rights Council in April. In September, following successful Ukrainian counteroffensives, Putin announced a "partial mobilisation", Russia's first mobilisation since Operation Barbarossa. In the end of September, Putin proclaimed the annexation of four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions, the largest annexation in Europe since World War II. Putin and Russian-installed leaders signed treaties of accession, internationally unrecognised and widely denounced as illegal. As a result of the invasion, hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have been killed or injured, while Russia has been accused of numerous war crimes. The war in Ukraine has further exacerbated Russia's demographic crisis.
In June 2023, the Wagner Group, a private military contractor fighting for Russia in Ukraine, declared an open rebellion against the Russian Ministry of Defence, capturing Rostov-on-Don, before beginning a march on Moscow. However, after negotiations between Wagner and the Belarusian government, the rebellion was called off. The leader of the rebellion, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was later killed in a plane crash. Putin won his third consecutive term in the 2024 presidential election, by winning 88% of the vote, the highest percentage in a presidential election in post-Soviet Russia.
Russia has nine major mountain ranges, and they are found along the Southern Russia, which share a significant portion of the Caucasus Mountains (containing Mount Elbrus, which at is the highest peak in Russia and Europe); the Altai Mountains and Sayan Mountains in Siberia; and in the East Siberian Mountains and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East (containing Klyuchevskaya Sopka, which at is the highest active volcano in Eurasia). The Ural Mountains, running north to south through the country's west, are rich in mineral resources, and form the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia. The lowest point in Russia and Europe, is situated at the head of the Caspian Sea, where the Caspian Depression reaches some below sea level. Russia, as one of the world's only three countries bordering three oceans, has links with a great number of seas. Its major islands and archipelagos include Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands (four of which are disputed with Japan), and Sakhalin. The Diomede Islands, administered by Russia and the United States, are just apart; and Kunashir Island of the Kuril Islands is merely from Hokkaido, Japan.
Russia, home of over 100,000 rivers, has one of the world's largest surface water resources, with its lakes containing approximately one-quarter of the world's liquid fresh water. Lake Baikal, the largest and most prominent among Russia's fresh water bodies, is the world's deepest, purest, oldest and most capacious fresh water lake, containing over one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega in Northwest Russia are two of the largest lakes in Europe. Russia is second only to Brazil by total renewable water resources. The Volga in western Russia, widely regarded as Russia's national river, is the longest river in Europe and forms the Volga Delta, the largest river delta in the continent. The Siberian rivers of Ob River, Yenisey, Lena River, and Amur River are among the world's longest rivers.
Throughout much of the territory, there are only two distinct seasons, winter and summer, as spring and autumn are usually brief. The coldest month is January (February on the coastline); the warmest is usually July. 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, even in Siberia. Climate change in Russia is causing more frequent wildfires, and thawing the country's large expanse of permafrost.
Russia's entirely natural ecosystems are conserved in nearly 15,000 specially protected natural territories of various statuses, occupying more than 10% of the country's total area. They include 45 biosphere reserves, 64 national parks, and 101 Zapovednik. Although in decline, the country still has many ecosystems which are still considered intact forest, mainly in the northern taiga areas, and the subarctic tundra of Siberia. Russia had a Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.02 in 2019, ranking 10th out of 172 countries, and the first ranked major nation globally.
The president is elected by popular vote for a six-year term and may be elected no more than twice. Ministries of the government are composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers, and selected other individuals; all are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister (whereas the appointment of the latter requires the consent of the State Duma). United Russia is the dominant political party in Russia, and has been described as "big tent" and the "party of power".
Post-Soviet Russia was a flawed democracy during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin. However, following the presidencies of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, it has experienced significant democratic backsliding. The political system evolved from electoral authoritarianism into a consolidated authoritarian regime. Some political scientists have characterized Putin as the head of a dictatorship, or a personalist regime. Putin's second tenure as president has led to further autocratization, which has been the most significant since the Soviet era, with some authors suggesting a regeneration of Totalitarianism elements. Putin's ruling policies are generally referred to as Putinism.
The federal subjects have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Federal Assembly. They do, however, differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy. The federal districts of Russia were established by Putin in 2000 to facilitate central government control of the federal subjects. Originally seven, currently there are eight federal districts, each headed by an envoy appointed by the president.
| The most common type of federal subject with a governor and locally elected legislature. Commonly named after their administrative centres. | |
| Each is nominally autonomous—home to a specific ethnic minority, and has its own constitution, language, and legislature, but is represented by the federal government in international affairs. (2025). 9780765605597, EastWest Institute. ISBN 9780765605597 | |
| For all intents and purposes, krais are legally identical to oblasts. The title "krai" ("frontier" or "territory") is historic, related to geographic (frontier) position in a certain period of history. The current krais are not related to frontiers. | |
| Occasionally referred to as "autonomous district", "autonomous area", and "autonomous region", each with a substantial or predominant ethnic minority. | |
| Major cities that function as separate regions (Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as well as Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Ukraine). | |
| The only autonomous oblast is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. |
Russia maintains close relations with neighbouring Belarus, which is a part of the Union State, a supranational confederation of the two states. Serbia has been a historically close ally of Russia, as both countries share a strong mutual cultural, ethnic, and religious affinity. From the 21st century, relations between Russia and China have significantly strengthened bilaterally and economically due to shared political interests. India is the largest customer of Russian military equipment, and the two countries share a strong strategic and diplomatic relationship since the Soviet era. Russia wields significant political influence across the geopolitics important South Caucasus and Central Asia, and the two regions have been described as being part of Russia's "backyard", or "near abroad".
Russia shares a complex strategic, energy, and defence relationship with Turkey. It maintains cordial relations with Iran, as it is a strategic and economic ally. Russia has also significantly developed its relations with North Korea following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with increased defence co-operation. At the same time, its relations with neighbouring Ukraine and the Western world—specifically the United States and the collective countries of the European Union and NATO—have collapsed.
In the 21st century, Russia has pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at securing regional power in Europe and increasing its international influence, as well as increasing domestic support for the government. It has initiated military interventions in the post-Soviet states of Georgia and Ukraine, as well as in Syria during its prolonged civil war in a bid to increase its influence in the Middle East. Russia has also increasingly pushed to expand its influence across the Arctic, the Asia–Pacific, Africa and Latin America. Two-thirds of the world's population, specifically the developing countries of the Global South, are either neutral or leaning towards Russia politically. Russia has also continued using subversive tactics to increase perceptions of its geopolitical power in its rival countries, including cyberwarfare, disinformation campaigns, sabotage attacks, assassination attempts, airspace violations, electoral interferences, and nuclear saber-rattling.
Russia is among the five recognised nuclear-weapons states, with the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons; over half of the world's nuclear weapons are owned by Russia. Russia possesses the second-largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines, and is one of the only three countries operating . (2025). 9780804750172, Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804750172 , Russia maintains the world's third-highest military expenditure, spending $109 billion, corresponding to about 5.9% of its GDP. It was also the third-largest arms exporter in 2020–2024, and has a large and indigenous defence industry, which produces the majority of its military equipment.
Since 2004, Freedom House has ranked Russia as "not free" in its Freedom in the World survey. Since 2011, the Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked Russia as an "authoritarian regime" in its Democracy Index, ranking it 150th out of 167 countries in 2024. In regards to media freedom, Russia was ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index for 2024. The Russian government has been widely criticised by political dissidents and human rights activists for unfair elections, crackdowns on opposition political parties and protests, persecution of non-governmental organisations and enforced suppression and killings of independent journalists, and censorship of mass media and internet.
Muslims, especially Salafi movement, have faced persecution in Russia. To quash the insurgency in the North Caucasus, Russian authorities have been accused of indiscriminate killings, arrests, forced disappearances, and torture of civilians. In Dagestan, some Salafis along with facing government harassment based on their appearance, have had their homes blown up in counterinsurgency operations. Chechens and Ingush people in Russian prisons reportedly take more abuse than other ethnic groups. During the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has set up filtration camps where many Ukrainians are subjected to abuses and forcibly sent to Russia; the camps have been compared to those used in the Chechen Wars. Political repression also increased following the start of the invasion, with laws adopted that establish punishments for "discrediting" the armed forces.
Russia has introduced several restrictions on LGBTQ rights. In 2013, an anti-LGBTQ law banning "gay propaganda" was unanimously passed by the State Duma and the Federation Council, later being signed into law by Vladimir Putin. In 2020, the Russian parliament legalized a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, and in 2021 the Ministry of Justice designated the LGBTQ rights group Russian LGBT Network as a "foreign agent". In 2022, further amendments were made to the 2013 anti-LGBTQ law. In 2023, the Russian parliament passed a bill banning gender reassignment surgery for transgender people and the Supreme Court of Russia banned the LGBTQ movements as "extremist", outlawing it in the country. In 2024, the Supreme Court issued the first convictions from the latter ruling.
The primary and fundamental statement of laws in Russia is the constitution. Statutes, such as the Russian Civil Code and the Russian Criminal Code, are the predominant legal sources of Russian law. Russia has the largest incarcerated population in Europe, and the fifth-largest incarcerated population in the world. Its incarceration rate is among the highest in Europe, although the number has fallen steadily, by 59% since 2000. , Russia's intentional homicide rate stood at 6.8 per 100,000 people. In 2023, Russia had the world's second-largest illegal arms trade market, after the United States, was described as a key hub for human trafficking, and was ranked first in Europe and 19th globally in the Global Organized Crime Index.
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country has faced extensive sanctions and other negative financial actions from the Western world and its allies which have the aim of isolating the Russian economy from the Western financial system. However, Russia has completed its transition into a war economy, and has shown resilience to such measures broadly, maintaining economic stability and growth—driven primarily by high military expenditure, rising household consumption and wages, low unemployment, and increased government spending. Yet, inflation has remained comparatively high, with experts predicting the sanctions will have a long-term negative effect on the Russian economy.
Russia has one of the world's largest amounts of energy resources throughout its vast landmass, particularly natural gas and oil, which play a crucial role in its energy self-sufficiency and exports. It has been widely described as an energy superpower. (2025). 9781760463397, Australian National University. ISBN 9781760463397 Russia has the world's largest proven gas reserves, the second-largest coal reserves, the eighth-largest proven oil reserves, and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe. , it is also the second-largest producer and the third-largest exporter of natural gas, as well as the second-largest producer and exporter of crude oil. Russia's large oil and gas sector accounted for 30% of its federal budget revenues in 2024, down from 50% in the mid-2010s, suggesting economic diversification.
Russia is the world's third-largest energy producer . account for over 64% of energy production and 87% of energy consumption. Natural gas is by far the largest source of energy, comprising over half of the energy production and 42% of electricity consumption. Russia was the first country to develop civilian nuclear power, building the world's first nuclear power plant in 1954, and remains a pioneer in nuclear energy technology and is considered a world leader in fast neutron reactors. Russia is the world's fourth-largest nuclear energy producer. Russian energy policy aims to expand the role of nuclear energy and develop new reactor technology. Russia is the sole country that builds and operates nuclear-powered icebreakers, which ease navigation along the Northern Sea Route, and aid in utilizing its Arctic policy in its continental shelf.
Russia joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, and ratified the agreement in 2019. Its greenhouse gas emissions are the fourth-largest in the world . Coal accounts for over 10% of its energy consumption. Russia is the fifth-largest hydroelectric producer , with hydroelectric power contributing almost a fifth to the total energy generation (17%). Though it is the eighth-largest renewable energy producer , the use and development of other renewable energy resources remain negligible, as Russia is among the few countries without strong governmental or public support for a renewable energy transition.
Various analysts of climate change adaptation foresee large opportunities for Russian agriculture during the rest of the 21st century as arability increases in Siberia, which would lead to both internal and external migration to the region. Owing to its large coastline along three oceans and twelve marginal seas, Russia maintains the world's sixth-largest fishing industry, capturing nearly 5 million tons of fish in 2018. It is home to the world's finest caviar, the beluga, and produces about one-third of all canned fish and some one-fourth of the world's total fresh and frozen fish.
Since the times of Nikolay Lobachevsky, who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry, and Pafnuty Chebyshev, a prominent tutor, Russian mathematicians became among the world's most influential. Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table, the main framework of modern chemistry. Nine Soviet and Russian mathematicians have been awarded with the Fields Medal. Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006. Alexander Popov was among the inventors of radio, while Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were co-inventors of laser and maser. Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of semiconductor junctions, and discovered light-emitting diodes. Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology. Élie Metchnikoff is known for his groundbreaking research in immunology. Ivan Pavlov is known chiefly for his work in classical conditioning. Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics.
Nikolai Vavilov was best known for having identified the Vavilov center of origin of Horticulture plants. Trofim Lysenko was known mainly for Lysenkoism. Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés. Igor Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer. Vladimir Zworykin was the inventor of the iconoscope and kinescope television systems. Theodosius Dobzhansky was the central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis. George Gamow was one of the foremost advocates of the Big Bang theory.
In 1957, the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin. Many other Soviet and Russian space exploration records ensued. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6. In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2.
In 1957, Laika, a Soviet space dog, became the first animal to orbit the Earth, aboard Sputnik 2. In 1966, Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial body, the Moon. In 1968, Zond 5 brought the first Earthlings (two tortoises and other life forms) to circumnavigate the Moon. In 1970, Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet, Venus. In 1971, Mars 3 became the first spacecraft to land on Mars. During the same period, Lunokhod 1 became the first space exploration rover, while Salyut 1 became the world's first space station.
, Russia has 181 active satellites in space, which is the third-highest in the world. Between the final flight of the Space Shuttle programme in 2011 and the 2020 SpaceX's first crewed mission, Soyuz rockets were the only launch vehicles capable of transporting astronauts to the ISS. Luna 25 launched in August 2023, was the first of the Luna-Glob Moon exploration programme.
Moscow, the nation's cosmopolitan capital and historic core, is a bustling modern megacity; it retains classical and Soviet-era architecture while boasting high art, world class ballet, and modern skyscrapers. Saint Petersburg, the imperial capital, is famous for its classical architecture, cathedrals, museums and theatres, white nights, crisscrossing rivers and numerous canals. Russia is famed worldwide for its rich museums, such as the Russian Museum, the Hermitage Museum, and the Tretyakov Gallery, and for theatres such as the Bolshoi Theatre and the Mariinsky. The Moscow Kremlin and the Saint Basil's Cathedral are among the cultural landmarks of Russia.
Russia's population peaked at over 148 million in 1993, having subsequently declined due to its death rate exceeding its birth rate, which some analysts have called a demographic crisis. In 2009, it recorded annual population growth for the first time in fifteen years, and subsequently experienced annual population growth due to declining death rates, increased birth rates, and increased immigration. However, these population gains have been reversed since 2020, as excessive deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the largest peacetime decline in its history. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the demographic crisis has deepened, owing to high military fatalities and renewed emigration. Recent studies have shown that between 15-45% of Russian emigrants have returned to Russia, though these numbers are not conclusive.
Russia is a multinational state with many subnational entities associated with different minorities. There are over 193 ethnic groups nationwide. In the 2010 census, roughly 81% of the population were ethnic Russians, and the remaining 19% of the population were ethnic minorities. Over four-fifths of Russia's population was of European descent—of whom the vast majority were Slavs, with a substantial minority of Finno-Ugric and Germanic peoples. Russia has the third-largest immigrant population in the world, with over 12 million immigrants residing in the country . The vast majority of the Immigrants hail from post-Soviet states, with about half of them being from Ukraine and Kazakhstan .
Russia is a multilingual nation: approximately 100–150 minority languages are spoken across the country. According to the Russian Census of 2010, 137.5 million across the country spoke Russian, 3.1 million spoke Tatar language, and 1.1 million spoke Ukrainian. The constitution gives the country's individual republics the right to establish their own state languages in addition to Russian, as well as guarantee its citizens the right to preserve their native language and to create conditions for its study and development. However, various experts have claimed Russia's linguistic diversity is rapidly declining due to many languages becoming endangered.
Islam is the second-largest religion in Russia and is traditional among the majority of peoples in the North Caucasus and some Turkic peoples in the Idel-Ural region. Large populations of Buddhists are found in Kalmykia, Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai, and they are the vast majority of the population in Tuva. A negligible population practices other religions—such as Rodnovery (Slavic Neopaganism), Assianism (Scythian Neopaganism), other ethnic Paganisms, and inter-Pagan movements such as Ringing Cedars' Anastasianism, various movements of Hinduism, Siberian shamanism and Tengrism, various Neo-Theosophy movements such as Roerichism—among other faiths. Some religious minorities have faced oppression and some have been banned in the country: notably, in 2017 the Jehovah's Witnesses were outlawed in Russia, facing persecution ever since, after having been declared an "extremist" and "nontraditional" faith.
In 2012, the research organisation Sreda, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, published the Arena Atlas, an adjunct to the 2010 census, enumerating in detail the religious populations and nationalities of Russia, based on a large-sample country-wide survey. The results showed that 47.3% of Russians declared themselves Christians—including 41% Russian Orthodox, 1.5% simply Orthodox or members of non-Russian Orthodox churches, 4.1% unaffiliated Christians, and less than 1% Old Believers, Catholic Church or Protestants—25% were believers without affiliation to any specific religion, 13% were atheism, 6.5% were Muslims, 1.2% were followers of "traditional religions honouring gods and ancestors" (Rodnovery, other Paganisms, Siberian shamanism and Tengrism), 0.5% were Buddhists, 0.1% were Judaism and 0.1% were Hindus.
Russia's pre-school education system is highly developed and optional, some four-fifths of children aged 3 to 6 attend day nurseries or kindergartens. Primary school is compulsory for eleven years, starting from age 6 to 7, and leads to a basic general education certificate. An additional two or three years of schooling are required for the secondary-level certificate, and some seven-eighths of Russians continue their education past this level.
Admission to an institute of higher education is selective and highly competitive:first-degree courses usually take five years. The oldest and largest universities in Russia are Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University. There are ten highly prestigious across the country.
The principal causes of death in Russia are cardiovascular diseases. The country's historically high alcohol consumption rate is the biggest health issue, as it remains one of the world's highest, despite a stark decrease in the last decade. Other prevalent health issues are obesity, with most adults being overweight or obese, and smoking, which is among the highest in the world. Russia's high suicide rate also remains a significant social issue.
Russia is home to 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 21 of which are cultural, while 31 lie on the tentative list. The large global Russian diaspora has also played a major role in spreading Russian culture throughout the world. Russia's national symbol, the double-headed eagle, dates back to the Tsardom period and is featured in its coat of arms and Russian heraldry. The Russian Bear and Mother Russia are often used as national personifications of the country. Matryoshka dolls are a cultural icon of Russia.
There are many popular non-public holidays. Old New Year is celebrated on 14 January. Maslenitsa is an ancient and popular East Slavic folk holiday. Cosmonautics Day on 12 April, in tribute to the first human trip into space. Two major Christian holidays are Easter and Trinity Sunday.
In the 1860s, a group of critical realists (Peredvizhniki), led by Ivan Kramskoy, Ilya Repin and Vasiliy Perov broke with the academy, and portrayed the many-sided aspects of social life in paintings. The turn of the 20th century saw the rise of symbolism, represented by Mikhail Vrubel and Nicholas Roerich. The Russian avant-garde flourished from approximately 1890 to 1930; globally influential artists from this era were El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall.
The history of Russian architecture begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs and the church architecture of Kievan Rus'. The Christianization of Kievan Rus' brought centuries Byzantine architecture. Following Mongol occupation, Kievan Rus' cut its ties with the Byzantine Empire, and Russian architecture saw native innovations, such as the invention of the iconostasis. Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends to the Grand Principality of Moscow, which influenced the reconstruction of the Moscow Kremlin. (2025). 9780470402573, John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780470402573 The 16th century saw the development of the unique and the onion dome design, which is a distinctive feature of Russian architecture. In the 17th century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl, gradually paving the way for the Naryshkin baroque of the 1680s.
After the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia's architecture became influenced by Western European styles. The 18th-century taste for Rococo architecture led to the works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers. The most influential Russian architects of the eighteenth century, Vasily Bazhenov, Matvey Kazakov, and Ivan Starov, created lasting monuments in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and established a base for the more Russian forms that followed. During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of Neoclassical architecture. Under Alexander I, Empire style became the de facto architectural style. The second half of the 19th century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival style. (2025). 9781618113474, Academic Studies Press. ISBN 9781618113474 In the early 20th century, Russian neoclassical revival became a trend. Prevalent styles of the late 20th century were Art Nouveau, Constructivism, and Socialist Classicism.
During the Soviet era, popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two balladeers—Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava, and performers such as Alla Pugacheva. Jazz, even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of the country's most popular musical forms. By the 1980s, rock music became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as Aria, Aquarium, DDT, and Kino; the latter's leader Viktor Tsoi, was in particular, a gigantic figure. Russian pop has continued to flourish in Russia since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as t.A.T.u.
The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol. Then, during the Age of Literary realism, came Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire, while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov, non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky, and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry. This era had poets such as Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, and Konstantin Balmont. It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. In the 1930s, Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky, who laid the foundations of this style. Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era. Nikolay Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include Vladimir Nabokov and Isaac Asimov, who was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers. Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in the Gulag camps.
Russian literature faced rapid and difficult changes during the turbulent post-Soviet 1990s, with writers and publishers struggling to adjust to new economic and political developments. Domestic literature subsequently declined in influence among most Russians, who now had sudden and rapid access to a wide volume of previously suppressed Western literary movements. Nevertheless, this environment fostered experimental and postmodern literature and satire. At the beginning of the 21st century, the most discussed figures, postmodernists Victor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin, remained the leading Russian writers.
Russian philosophy has been influential. Religious and spiritual philosophy is represented by Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Pavel Florensky, Semyon Frank, Nikolay Lossky, Vasily Rozanov, and others. Mystic Helena Blavatsky gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy and the co-founder of the Theosophical Society. Alexander Herzen is known as one of the fathers of Agrarianism populism. Mikhail Bakunin is referred to as the father of anarchism. Peter Kropotkin was the most important theorist of anarcho-communism. Mikhail Bakhtin's writings have significantly inspired scholars in various fields. Vladimir Lenin, a major revolutionary, developed a variant of communism known as Leninism. Leon Trotsky, Lenin's contemporary and co-revolutionary, founded his own strain of Marxism known as Trotskyism. Alexander Zinoviev was a prominent philosopher and writer in the second half of the 20th century.
Russia's national non-alcoholic drink is kvass, and the national alcoholic drink is vodka; its production in Russia (and elsewhere) dates back to the 14th century. The country has the world's highest vodka consumption, while beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage. Russian wine has become increasingly popular in Russia in the 21st century. Tea has been popular in Russia for centuries.
Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as Battleship Potemkin, which was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky, would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors. Eisenstein was a student of Lev Kuleshov, who developed the groundbreaking Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school, the All-Union Institute of Cinematography. Dziga Vertov's "Kino-Eye" theory had a large effect on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism. Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including Chapaev, The Cranes Are Flying, and Ballad of a Soldier.
The 1960s and 1970s saw a greater variety of artistic styles in Soviet cinema. The comedies of Eldar Ryazanov and Leonid Gaidai were immensely popular, with many of their catchphrases still in use today. In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk directed an Academy Award-winning film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace, which was the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union. In 1969, Vladimir Motyl's White Sun of the Desert was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian cinema industry suffered large losses; however, since the late 2000s, it has seen growth once again, and continues to expand.
Historically, Russian athletes have been one of the most successful contenders in the Olympic Games. Russia is the leading nation in rhythmic gymnastics, and Russian synchronised swimming is considered to be the world's best. Figure skating is another popular sport in Russia, especially pair skating and ice dancing. Russia has produced numerous prominent tennis players. Chess is also a widely popular pastime in the nation, with many of the world's top chess players being Russian for decades. The 1980 Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow, and the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics were hosted in Sochi. However, Russia has also had 43 stripped from its athletes due to doping violations, which is the most of any country, and nearly a third of the global total.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Chief of State and Cabinet Members (archived 4 October 2013)
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