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Portal:Russia

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Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries. It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. Russia is a highly urbanised country including 16 population centres with over a million inhabitants. Its capital and largest city is Moscow. Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city and its cultural capital.

The East Slavs emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated; the Grand Duchy of Moscow led the unification of Russian lands, leading to the proclamation of the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for ideological dominance and international influence. The Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space. (Full article...)

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The Battle of Kulikovo by Blinov

Çibörek and ayran in a Turkish cafe

Cheburek (plural: Chebureki) are deep-fried turnovers with a filling of ground or minced meat and onions. A popular street dish, they are made with a single round piece of dough folded over the filling in a crescent shape. They have become widespread in the former Soviet-aligned countries of Eastern Europe in the 20th century.

Chebureki is a national dish of Crimean Tatar cuisine. They are popular as a snack and street food throughout the Caucasus, West Asia, Central Asia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Europe, as well as in Turkey, Greece and Romania. (Full article...)

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Portrait of Rimsky-Korsakov in 1898 by Valentin Serov (detail)
Rimsky-Korsakov's signature

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his fifteen operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy-tale and folk subjects.

Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov. This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony, and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. He undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka and fellow members of The Five. Rimsky-Korsakov's techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner. (Full article...)

In the news

24 September 2024 – Attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Kharkiv strikes
At least three people are killed and 22 others are injured in a Russian guided bomb attack on an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Reuters)
23 September 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
August 2024 Kursk Oblast incursion
The Russian Foreign Ministry reports that at least 56 Russian civilians were killed and 266 others were injured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kursk Oblast, Russia, which the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denies as Russian propaganda. (Reuters)
23 September 2024 – Japan–Russia relations
Japanese fighter jets fire warning flares at a Russian aircraft that violated Japanese airspace off Rebun Island. (Reuters)
22 September 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
Zaporizhzhia strikes

More Did you know (auto generated)

  • ... that Russian scientist Dmitry Kolker was arrested on charges of espionage while being treated for terminal cancer at a hospital and flown to Moscow, dying two days later?
  • ... that around the age of four, Jacob von Eggers was deported to Arkhangelsk in Russia together with the entire German-speaking population of Tartu?
  • ... that an essay of jailed Socialist Revolutionary politician Alexander Helfgot was smuggled out of Russia and published in Berlin in 1922?
  • ... that the 1885 wreck of the cargo ship Dmitry was the inspiration for the arrival of Count Dracula in England in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel?
  • ... that Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy is written both in Ukrainian and Russian?
  • ... that the Russian and Belarussian military exercise Zapad 2009 involved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles?

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Garry Kasparov
I think Russian people are learning that democracy is not an alien thing; it's not a western invention. It's probably the most affordable mechanism to solve problems inside the country, inside the society because Putin proved to all of us that democracy has a world of alternatives, security forces and police and power abuse and that's why I think eventually the people of Russia will embrace democracy as the least costly institution to help them to solve their daily problems.
Garry Kasparov, 2005
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