The history of the Russian Federation is overwhelming. It is apparent on every corner of the country's staggeringly awesome cities, such as Moscow and St Petersburg, with their architectural marvels. But it also dwells in huge and remote expanses such as Siberia, filled with ancient forests and the world's deepest lake. Everything exists here on a mammoth level. Since the 15th century, when the Grand Prince of Moscow, Ivan III (the Great), annexed the rival principalities of Russia, Russia's ambitions have been as great as this first national sovereign's appellation.
Names of rulers such as Peter the Great (1682-1725) and Catherine the Great (1762-96) roll of the tongue in easy familiarity. However, in the early 19th century, under Tsar Alexander I, the first steps were taken to dismantle the system of serfdom under which most people lived – and, by 1917, widespread strikes and rioting had forced the Tsar to abdicate. The liberal Provisional Government which took control was forced out by a Bolshevik coup under Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin.
Lenin died in 1924 and was succeeded by Josef Stalin, who instituted a crash program of industrialization and the forced collectivization of agriculture, an indiscriminately brutal process that caused mass starvation. Stalin begot purges in which thousands were shot or disappeared into the vast network of concentration camps famously described as the ‘gulag archipelago’. An estimated 20 million people then died driving out Hitler's armies in World War II – referred to as the Great Patriotic War.
Yet by the time the war damage had been repaired, the USSR had become the world’s second nuclear power, with a buffer zone of Communist-controlled governments in Eastern Europe. Foreign policy was dominated by relations with the USA, which fluctuated from outright hostility (coming to the brink of nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis) to the ‘Cold Peace’ of détente, fully actuated with the presidency of Boris Yeltsin in 1991 and the dismantling of Communism.
But some incredibly tricky problems remain. The ruling class are now the security forces, the military, the so-called ‘oligarchs’ and regional governors controlling fiefdoms; they have become more rich as the majority has suffered, despite economic improvements. The crisis surrounding Chechnya is another blot to be cleaned: Russo-Chechen relations are replete with warfare and large-scale brutality on both sides. A political solution is elusive.
Perhaps these are issues that come 'with the territory'. The Russian Federation's enormity has brought with it the ‘nationalities problem’. Gone are the days of the 100-plus distinct ethnic groups in the Soviet Union – but the Russian Federation is still a melting pot, straddling two continents, breathing both West and Eastern air, and sometimes undermining the cohesion and integrity of the nation in the process. Yet it is precisely because this country is so complex that it remains so endlessly fascinating. And it is in spite of it that it retains the simple truth of being so aesthetically beautiful.
Geography
The Russian Federation covers almost twice the area of the USA, and reaches from Moscow in the west over the Urals and the vast Siberian plains to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. The border between European Russia and Siberia (Asia) is formed by the Ural Mountains, the Ural River and the Manych Depression. European Russia extends from the North Polar Sea across the Central Russian Uplands to the Black Sea, the Northern Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. Siberia stretches from the West Siberian Plain across the Central Siberian Plateau between Yenisey and Lena, including the Sayan, Yablonovy and Stanovoy ranges in the south to the East Siberian mountains between Lena and the Pacific coast, including the Chukotskiy and Kamchatka peninsulas.