Portal:Russia

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The Russia Portal
Русский Портал

The Russia Portal

Russia (Russian: Россия, Rossiya), also the Russian Federation (Rossiyskaya Federatsiya), is a Eurasian country extending over much of northern Eurasia. It is a semi-presidential republic comprising 85 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, Iran through the Caspian Sea, and the U.S. state of Alaska by the Bering Strait.

At 17,075,400 square kilometers, Russia is by far the largest country in the world, covering more than an eighth of the Earth’s land area; with 143 million people, it is the eighth largest by population. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 11 time zones and incorporating a great range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's greatest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is considered an energy superpower. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's unfrozen fresh water.

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Approximate location of Kengir camp in Kazakhstan
The Kengir uprising was a prisoner uprising that took place in the Soviet prison labor camp Kengir in the spring of 1954. It was distinct from other Gulag uprisings in the same period in its duration and intensity. After the murder of some of their fellow prisoners by guards, Kengir inmates launched a rebellion and proceeded to seize the entire camp compound, holding it for weeks and creating a period of freedom for themselves unique in the history of the Gulag. This situation lasted for an unprecedented length of time and gave rise to a panoply of colourful and novel activity, including the democratic formation of a provisional government by the prisoners, prisoner marriages, the creation of indigenous religious ceremonies, a brief flowering of art and culture, and the waging of a large, relatively complex propaganda campaign against the erstwhile authorities. After 40 days of freedom within the camp walls, intermittent negotiation, and mutual preparation for violent conflict, the uprising was brutally suppressed by Soviet armed forces. The story of the uprising was first committed to history in The Gulag Archipelago, a nonfiction work by former-prisoner and Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

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Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasury to Jerome Horsey
Credit: Alexander Litovchenko

Alexander Litovchenko's 1875 painting depicting Ivan the Terrible seated in the Kremlin Armoury, his half-witted heir Feodor standing behind, a group of distrustful boyars whispering at a distance, and the Tsar's jester in a skomorokh cap addressing the English diplomat Jerome Horsey. Horsey was a resident of the Muscovy Company in Moscow from 1572 to 1585.

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Siege of Kazan (1552)

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NASA soil target on Mars named after Laika
Laika was one of the Russian space dogs and the first living being to enter orbit, as a passenger on Sputnik 2, a Soviet spacecraft. Some classify her as the first animal to enter space, although other animals had entered space during sub-orbital flights on previous missions. Laika was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow, a female part-Samoyed terrier weighing approximately 6 kg (13 lb). Laika died on November 4, 1957, a few hours after launch, due to stress and overheating. Her true cause of death was not made public until years after the flight, with officials always stating that she was either euthanized by poisoned food or died when the oxygen supply ran out. Russian officials have since expressed regret for allowing Laika to die; to this date, Laika is the only living passenger ever to have been launched into space without the intention of retrieval.

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Leo Tolstoy
A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth--science--which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.

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Things you can do Привет and Welcome! The following is a list of things you can do:

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