Russia: Political and Economic Geography

1. Metropolitan University Prague
Martin Kolmhofer
RUSSIA

2. Russia is the world’s largest country (but is only home to around 2% of Earth’s
inhabitants.)

3. Russia's territory spans over 4,000 km from north to south, and almost
10,000 km from west to east.

4. Russia uses nine standard time zones. (The standard time zone is ahead by 3
hours so if the time in London is 2 p.m. then the time in Russia is 5 p.m.)

5. Russia has its cultural origins in Kyivan Rus, the kingdom located in what is today
Ukraine and Belarus. (Formed during the ninth century - crossed by commerce
linking the Baltic and the Caspian Sea - Kiev was the principal river port on that
route).The birth of the Russian State is usually identified with the founding of
Novgorod in AD 862, although until 1480 Russia was overrun by the Mongols.

6. Ivan IV (1530-1584), known in English as Ivan the Terrible) became the first ruler
to crowned as Tsar of all the Russians. His long reign saw the conquests of the
Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan and Sibiria, transforming Russia into a multiethnic
and multiconfessional state. Russia was dominated from Moscow from then on.

7. Under the Romanov dynasty (1613–1917) Russia became the vast nation it is
today – territorial expansion from the 17th to 19th centuries saw the country
increase in size exponentially to include Siberia, the Arctic, the Russian Far East,
Central Asia and the Caucasus. Peter the Great wanted to westernize and
modernize Russia. He set up a navy and built a new capital, St Petersburg, in
1703.

8. Catherine the Great continued Peter’s progressive policies to create a world power
by the mid-18th century. She expanded Russia's borders to the Black Sea and into
central Europe (1772: Partition of Poland among Austria, Russia and Prussia, with
the Russian Empire gaining the largest share.)

9. In the east, Russia started to colonize Alaska.

10. 1860: Vladivostok ("the ruler of the East“) was founded in extreme southeast
Russia as a military outpost. Today Vladivostok is Russia's largest port city
on the Pacific Ocean.

11. Russia always tried to extend its territory to natural borders, the most important
being the Carpathians, the Caucasus, the Karakum Desert, the Pamirs, the Tien-
Shan, and the mountains of Southern Siberia.

12. In the year 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million.

13. Russia borders Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic countries to the west,
Finland and Norway to the north, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia and
China to the south, and North Korea to the east. The United States and Japan are
not far from the eastern coast of Russia.

14. The seas for the most part closed Russia in rather than served as outlets:
the Atlantic Ocean (the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov), the
Arctic Ocean (the Barents Sea, the White Sea, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea,
the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchee Sea) and the Pacific Ocean (the
Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan), as well the Caspian
Sea, which is a closed basin.

15. More than half of the country is located north of 60 Degrees Latitude. Two-thirds of
the territory of the Russia is covered by permafrost (no agriculture possible).

16. Climatic and geographic factors limit Russia's agricultural activity to about 5
percent of the country's total land area.

17. Russia has more than a fifth of the world's forests. The timber industry is a
significant contributor to the economy. The pulp and paper industry comprises
companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, board and
other cellulose-based products.

18. Russia has abundant water resources. Russian inland waterways are the longest
in the world – most of the river ports are equipped with railway access.

19. Russia has one of the world’s most diverse societies . Roughly 80 per cent of the
population is ethnic Russian. The rest is a mix of other ethnic groups, with the
Tatars and Ukrainians making the largest minorities.

20. “State Capitalism” :State corporations (created under Vladimir Putin’s rule)
control a big portion of Russian industries.

21. Russia plans a major upgrade to theTrans-Siberian Railway.
Moscow has two goals in the railway expansion: First, it hopes to boost its exports
of raw commodities. Second, and more important, an upgraded railway would also
give Russia a more prominent role in trade between Europe and Asia.

22. China and the USSR experienced significant geopolitical tension during the cold
war. This enmity began to lessen after the death of Mao Zedong, but relations
were poor until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Today (economic) relations have improved: China's fast-growing economy needs
to secure energy imports, while Russia's economy is largely driven by demand for
export of natural resources.

23. FILM RECOMMENDATION: RUSSIAN ARK

25. HISTORY OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC THOUGHT

26. FINANCIAL MARKETS: THE CITY OF LONDON

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