Russia is the largest country in the world, spanning northern Eurasia from eastern Europe to the Pacific Ocean. It has a wide variety of landscapes, from Arctic deserts in the far north to forest and steppe zones further south. Russia was founded as a centralized state in the 15th century under Grand Duke Ivan III and later strengthened by Tsars Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. In the 19th century, Tsar Alexander II expanded Russia's territory significantly while also abolishing serfdom, though with heavy restrictions remaining on freed peasants.

1. Russia

4. In the late 15th century, Duke Ivan III acquired Novgorod and Tver and threw off the Mongol yoke. Ivan IV, the Terrible (1533-84), first Muscovite tsar, is considered to have founded the Russian state. He crushed the power of rival princes and boyars (landowners), but Russia remained largely medieval until the reign of Peter the Great (1689-1725), grandson of the first Romanov tsar, Michael (1613-45). Russian history

5. More Russian history Alexander II (1855-81) pushed Russia's borders to the Pacific and into central Asia. Serfdom was abolished in 1861, but heavy restrictions were imposed on the emancipated class. Revolutionary strikes, following Russia's defeat in the war with Japan, forced Nicholas II (1894-1917) to grant a representative national body (Duma), elected by narrowly limited suffrage. It met for the first time in 1906, little influencing Nicholas in his reactionary course.