Russia is the world's largest country, spanning 17,125,200 square kilometers and covering more than one-eighth of Earth's inhabited land area. It has a developed market economy, rich in natural resources, and is characterized by vast biodiversity and significant cultural contributions. The country operates as a semi-presidential republic and has a complex history marked by the rise and fall of states, including the Soviet Union.

1. RUSSIA
COUNTRIES OF THE PLANET UNIT

2. GEOGRAPHY
• Russia is the world's largest country in total area.
• It is located in the W and E latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
• Russia spans 11 time zones.
• 23 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Russia, 40 UNESCO biosphere
reserves, 41 national parks and 101 nature reserves.
• It lies between latitudes 41° and 82° N, and longitudes 19° E and 169° W.

4. BORDERS
• 57,792 km, the Russian border is the world's longest.
• Boundaries with 14 countries: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Mongolia, China and North Korea.
• 13 seas and parts of 3 oceans—the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific.

5. MAP

6. FLAG COAT OF ARMS

7. CURRENT LEADERS 2016
• President: Vladimir Putin
• Prime Minister: Dmitry Medvedev

8. ETYMOLOGY
• The name Russia is
derived from Rus, a
medieval state
populated by the East
Slavs.
• The standard way to
refer to citizens of
Russia is "Russians".

9. CURRENCY
• The ruble or rouble (RUB) is the currency of Russia.
• The ruble is subdivided into 100 kopeks; it was decimalised in 1704.

10. AREA
• At 17,125,200 square kilometres Russia is the largest country in the
world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area.

11. EARLY HISTORY
• The East Slavs emerged as a group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th
centuries AD.
• Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite, the medieval state of
Rus arose in the 9th century.
• In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire.
• Rus' disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus'
lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of
the nomadic Golden Horde in the 13th century.
• The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding
Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde.

12. An ancient
Slavic town
(reconstruction)

13. MODERN HISTORY
• Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Soviet Federative
Socialist Republic became the largest country of the Soviet Union
abbreviated to USSR.
• Following the partition of the Soviet Union in 1991, fourteen
independent republics emerged from the USSR; as the largest, the
Russian SFSR reconstituted itself as the Russian Federation and is
recognized as the sole successor state of the Soviet Union.

14. Vladimir Ilich Lenin Joseph Stalin

15. GOVERNANCE
• According to the Constitution, the country is a federation and semi-
presidential republic, where the President is the head of state and the
Prime Minister is the head of government.
• The Russian Federation is structured as a multi-party representative
democracy, with the federal government composed of three:
• Legislative: State Duma and Federation Council.
• Executive: The President.
• Judiciary: The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and lower federal courts.

16. Moscow Kremlin, the working residence of the President of Russia

17. FOREIGN RELATIONS
• The Russian Federation is recognized as a successor state of the
former Soviet Union.
• Russia has assumed the USSR's permanent seat in the UN Security
Council and maintains diplomatic relations with 191 countries and
has 144 embassies.
• The foreign policy is determined by the President and implemented
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.
• While Russia is commonly accepted to be a great power, in recent
years it has been characterized as a potential superpower.

18. MILITARY
• The Russian military is divided into the Ground Forces, Navy, and Air
Force.
• In 2006, the military had 1 million personnel on active duty.
• It is mandatory for all male citizens aged 18–27 to be drafted for a
year of service in Armed Forces.
• Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world.
• It has the second largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines and is the
only country apart from the US with a strategic bomber force.
• Russia's tank force is the largest in the world.
• The official military budget is set to rise to US$ 93.9 billion in 2016.

19. The Sukhoi PAK FA is one of
the latest projects of the
Russian Armed Forces.

20. TOPOGRAPHY AND RELIEF FORMS
• Russia consists of vast plains, steppe to the south and heavily forested
to the north, with tundra along the northern coast.
• Russia possesses 10% of the world's arable land.
• Mountain ranges are found along the southern borders.
• Caucasus is highest in Russia and Europe: Mount Elbrus 5.642 m.
• The Ural Mountains are rich in mineral resources, form a north-south
range that divides Europe and Asia.
• Russia coastline is 37,000 km along the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, as
well as along the Baltic Sea, Sea of Azov, Black Sea and Caspian Sea.

21. Mount Elbrus, the highest point of the Caucasus, Russia and Europe

22. RIVERS AND LAKES
• Russia has lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's
liquid fresh water.
• The largest is Lake Baikal, the world's deepest, purest, oldest and
most capacious fresh water lake. Baikal alone contains over 20% of
the world's fresh surface water.
• Russia is second only to Brazil in volume of the total renewable water
resources.
• Volga is the most famous river, the longest river in Europe.

23. Mountains seen from the banks of Baikal

24. CLIMATE
• The climate of Russia is humid continental and tundra.
• Northern European Russia and Siberia has a subarctic climate, with
extremely severe winters in Siberia (record −71.2 °C).
• Along the shore of the Arctic Ocean there is a polar climate.
• Two distinct seasons—winter and summer—as spring and autumn
are brief periods of change between low and high temperatures.
• The coldest month is January; the warmest is July.

26. BIODIVERSITY
• From north to south the East European Russian Plain, is developed in:
• Arctic tundra
• Coniferous forest (taiga, mostly in Siberia)
• Mixed and broad-leaf forests
• Grassland (steppe)
• Semi-desert (fringing the Caspian Sea)
• Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, known as "the lungs of
Europe", second only to the Amazon Rainforest.
• There are 266 mammal species and 780 bird species in Russia.

28. ECONOMY
• Russia has a developed, high-income market economy.
• It has the 15th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the
6th largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).
• In 2014 Russia started shifting its economy towards China.
• Russia has a flat tax rate of 13%.
• Russia is considered well ahead of resource-rich countries in its
economic development, with a tradition of education and science.

30. NATURAL RESOURCES
• Natural resources of Russia is over 20% of the world’s reserves.
• Natural resources used by the economy of Russia account for 95.7%
of national wealth. There are large deposits of fuel and energy
resources: oil, natural gas, coal and uranium ore.
• Russia is ranked first in the world by gas reserves (32% of world’s
reserves), the second in oil production (10%), the third - in coal
reserves.
• Russia is first in iron ores, in tin – the second, lead - the third. Russia
also occupies a leading position in the world in wood.
• In 2005 Russia was the richest country in gold reserves.

32. POPULATION AND DENSITY
• 2010 Census show a total population of 142,856,536.
• Density is 8.4 people per square km.
• Population is densest in European Russia.
• 73% of the population lives in urban areas while 27% in rural ones.

34. CAPITAL
• Moscow is the capital with 20 million residents in the city limits and
16.8 million in the urban area.
• Moscow is a Russian federal city and is the largest city of Europe.
• Moscow is the 14th largest metro area, the 18th largest
agglomeration, the 15th largest urban area, and the 11th largest by
population within city limits worldwide.

36. LARGEST CITIES
• Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia.
• It was named Saint Petersburg in 1703. In 1914, was changed to
Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, and in 1991 to Saint Petersburg.
• Tsar Peter the Great founded Saint Petersburg in 1703.
• Between 1713–1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the
imperial capital of Russia.
• Total population in 2012 was 5 million inhabitants.

38. ETHNIC GROUPS
• The 2010 census recorded 81% of the population as ethnically
Russian, and 19% as other ethnicities:
• 3.7% Tatars
• 1.4% Ukrainians
• 1.1% Bashkirs
• 1% Chuvashes
• 11.8% others and unspecified.
• 84.93% of the Russian population belongs to European ethnic groups
(Slavic, Germanic, Finnic, Greek).

40. LANGUAGE
• Russia's 160 ethnic groups speak some 100 languages.
• According to the 2002 Census, 142.6 million people speak Russian,
followed by Tatar (5.3 million) and Ukrainian (1.8 million).
• Russian is the only official state language, but the Constitution gives
the republics the right to their own languages in addition to Russian.
• Russian is the second-most used language on the Internet after
English, one of two official languages aboard the International Space
Station and is one of the six official languages of the UN.
• 35 languages are officially recognized in Russia in various regions.

42. RELIGION
• 73.6% of Russians are Christians.
• Orthodox Christianity, Islam (6%), Judaism and Buddhism are Russia's
traditional religions, and are all legally part of Russia's heritage.

43. HEALTH SYSTEM
• The Russian Constitution guarantees free, universal health care for all
its citizens.
• Russia has more physicians, hospitals, and health care workers than
any other country in the world on a per capita basis.
• Average life expectancy increased with 5.2 years for males and 3.1
years for females between 2006 and 2014.

44. EDUCATION SYSTEM AND LITERACY
• Russia has the most college-level or higher graduates in terms of
percentage of population in the world, at 54%.
• Russia has a free education system, which is guaranteed for all
citizens by the Constitution which is highly competitive.
• Russian medical, mathematical, scientific, and aerospace research is
generally of a high order.
• Since 1990, the 11-year school education has been introduced.
• Education in state-owned secondary schools is free.
• University education is free.
• In 2004, state spending for education amounted to 3.6% of the GDP,
or 13% of the consolidated state budget.

45. CULTURE
• Famous authors: Lomonosov, Pushkin (the "Russian Shakespeare“),
Lermontov, Ostrovsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy,
Dostoyevsky.
• Famous composers: Balakirev, Tchaikovsky, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-
Korsakov and Borodin.
• Famous ballet dancers: Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Pavlova, Plisetskaya
• Famous painters: Kandinsky, Chagall, Pasternak

46. Rudolf Nureyev

47. PERSONALITIES
• Tsar Nicholas
• Lenin
• Stalin
• Gorbatchev
• Gagarin
• Trotsky
• Ivan the Terrible
Iuri Gagarin