Northern asia(the area west of the Urals is considered part of Europe) boardering the Arctic Ocean, between the Northern Pacific Ocean
Geographic Coordinates
60 00 N,100 00 East
Continent
Asia/ Europe
Area Comparison
1
Border countries
Azerbaijan 284 km, Belarus 959 km, China (southeast) 3,605 km, China (south) 40 km, Estonia 290 km, Finland 1,313 km, Georgia 723 km, Kazakhstan 6,846 km, North Korea 17.5 km, Latvia 292 km, Lithuania (Kaliningrad Oblast) 227 km, Mongolia 3,441 km, Norway 196 km, Poland (Kaliningrad Oblast) 432 km, Ukraine 1,576 km
Climate
subarctic in Siberia to tundra climate in the polar north; winters vary from cool along Black Sea coast to frigid in Siberia; summers vary from warm in the steppes to cool along Arctic coast
Terrian
broad plain with low hills west of Urals; vast coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; uplands and mountains along southern border regions
Natural Resources
Gas, oil, iron ore, and gold.
Natural Hazards
permafrost over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development; volcanic activity in the Kuril Islands; volcanoes and earthquakes on the Kamchatka Peninsula; spring floods and summer/autumn forest fires throughout Siberia and parts of European Russia
Goverment
Country Name
Russia
Goverment type
Fedaration
Capital
Moscow
Chief of state/Head of goverment
Ambassador John R. BEYRLE
Economy
Russian farmers
Labor force by Occupation
Literacy and education levels among the Russian population (148 million in 1996) are relatively high, largely because the Soviet system placed great emphasis on education (see The Soviet Heritage, ch. 5). Some 92 percent of the Russian people have completed at least secondary school, and 11 percent have completed some form of higher education (university and above). In 1995 about 57 percent of the Russian population was of working age, which the government defined as between the ages of sixteen and fifty-five for women and between the ages of sixteen and sixty for men, and 20 percent had passed working age. Women make up more than half the work force.
Agriculture
Agricultural enterprises (i.e., former State and collective farms) dominate production of most agricultural commodities in the Russia, including roughly 85 percent of grains and over 75 percent of sunflowerseed.
Industry
Russia has a range of mining and extractive industries. These include coal, oil, and gas extraction as well as the chemicals and metals industries. Russian enterprises take part in all forms of machine building from rolling mills to high-performance aircraft and space vehicles. Russian enterprises are involved in shipbuilding, manufacturing of road and rail transportation equipment, communications equipment, agricultural machinery, tractors, and construction equipment. Russian firms produce electric power generating and transmitting equipment, medical and scientific instruments, consumer durables, textiles, foodstuffs, processed food products, and handicrafts.
Exported Commodities
petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, metals, wood and wood products, chemicals, and a wide variety of civilian and military manufactures
Imported Commodities
machinery, vehicles, pharmaceutical products, plastic, semi-finished metal products, meat, fruits and nuts, optical and medical instruments, iron, steel
Currency
Russian rubles (RUB) per US dollar -
30 (2010)
Communication
Number of Land Line Phones
Number of cell phones
Transportation
Airports
Airports - with unpaved runways:
total: 620
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 13
1,524 to 2,437 m: 68
914 to 1,523 m: 84
under 914 m: 452 (2010)
Paved Airports
total: 593
over 3,047 m: 51
2,438 to 3,047 m: 201
1,524 to 2,437 m: 126
914 to 1,523 m: 98
under 914 m: 117 (2010)
Roadways
total: 982,000 km country comparison to the world:7
paved: 776,000 km (includes 30,000 km of expressways)
unpaved: 206,000 km note:includes public, local, and departmental roads
total population: 66.29 years country comparison to the world:162
male: 59.8 years
female: 73.17 years
Nationality
noun: Russian(s)
adjective: Russian
Religions
Russian Orthodox 15-20%, Muslim 10-15%, other Christian 2% (2006 est.) note:estimates are of practicing worshipers; Russia has large populations of non-practicing believers and non-believers, a legacy of over seven decades of Soviet rule
Languages
Russian (official), many minority languages
Literacy
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99.4%
male: 99.7%
female: 99.2% (2002 census)
Millitary
this was the the Solviet Union(the russians durin WWII)
famous battles
ikrDeception (maskirovka) is a Russian specialty that dates at least to the time of Count Potemkin and his eponymous village. Because of certain natural and man-made landmarks in the Moscow area, the Soviets decided that Luftwaffe pilots would not have much trouble finding key targets. The NKVD appointed two special commissions to determine ways to camouflage the Kremlin and the Lenin Mausoleum, among other sites. The Kremlin's walls were repainted to look like house fronts, and major roads were made to look like rooftops. The Soviets disguised key factories and built phony ones out of wood and cardboard. The Lenin mausoleum was sandbagged and covered with netting.
On 3 July, almost two weeks after the German invasion, Stalin addressed the Soviet people for the first time in his famous "scorched earth" speech. "Leave nothing to the enemy," he demanded. The newly released documents reveal that the NKVD was assigned to defend downtown Moscow and the Kremlin, where a last stand would be made against the Nazi marauders if the Red Army were defeated. NKVD units worked with the commandant of the Kremlin garrison to stockpile weapons and ammunition and positioned themselves in the Hall of Columns adjacent to the city's most famous landmark.10
The documents reveal that Stalin was prepared to destroy Moscow to deny it to Hitler, just as Alexander I had denied the city to Napoleon by ordering its destruction in 1812. The French emperor had hoped to replenish his army with grain, gunpowder, and ammunition. Instead, he found a smoldering ruin, a ghost town that had been burned to the ground. Still, Napoleon lingered for a month, expecting the Russian emperor to sue for peace. He was disappointed. Hitler evidently learned nothing from Bonaparte's experience and might have repeated the same scenario if his forces had taken Moscow.
In 1812, Moscow was a city of wood, and Muscovites were able to destroy it by setting fires. In 1941, the situation was more complicated. A new NKVD special operations force called OMSBON (Independent Motorized Brigade for Special Operations) was formed in October 1941. It was the only unit with the technicians and explosives needed to mine the city's most famous sites, including the Kremlin, the orchestra pit of the Bolshoi Theater, the Metropole and National hotels, the Cathedral of the Epiphany, the residence of the Soviet foreign minister, the Foreign Ministry building, and the dachas (country houses) of all Soviet leaders except Stalin, who was afraid that the explosives might be used against him.11 Plans were made to destroy Moscow's telephone system, its water supply, and its power stations, as well as other parts of the urban infrastructure, which would have made the city all but uninhabitable.
The Battle of Moscow was the NKVD's finest hour—no doubt about it. Twenty-four omsbonovtsevi, as the detachments' members were called, received Hero of the Soviet Union medals, the USSR's highest military award for bravery, equivalent to the Congressional Medal of Honor. Stalin and Zhukov both acknowledged their role in saving the city. Thereafter, however, the NKVD and its OMSBON detachments would play second fiddle to the Red Army. From January 1942 on, the main emphasis was on forming special operations units and inserting them in the enemy's rear, where they carried out their own attacks or acted in conjunction with local partisan forces (Part III "The Special Department Reports . . ."). The NKVD conducted a wide range of intelligence and counterintelligence operations behind enemy lines, gathering order-of-battle data on German forces and trying to discern their locations, intentions, combat strengths, and morale. It also carried out assassinations of key Nazi officials, police officers, and Soviet collaborators and traitors in the occupied areas. Occasionally, OMSBON assisted the regular forces, even paving the way for some of the major Soviet counteroffensives of 1943-44, but its role was subordinate rather than independent of the military command.
As the Red Army pushed the Germans back from Moscow, the NKVD began laying the groundwork for intelligence operations and partisan warfare in the areas overrun by the Germans in the first months of the war (Part IV "Fare Thee Well Moscow . . ."). The Moscow Center organized rezidenturas in the occupied areas to spy on the Germans, as well as on the Soviet people living there. NKVD operatives gathered information on the mood and morale of the people, which in the early stages of the war was important for gauging whether the ethnically diverse population, which had suffered greatly under Stalin's bloody dictatorship, would remain loyal to Moscow or go over to the other side. While many did welcome the Germans and then collaborated, most did not. Early NKVD reports indicating that the people considered the conflict to be a holy war to the death convinced Stalin and his entourage that sooner or later the Soviet Union would prevail. The NKVD also monitored the mood and morale of Soviet forces, again looking for indications of discontent and dissatisfaction that might undermine the war effort. They also developed ways of gathering information on the state of mind of Soviet prisoners-of-war—they interrogated German POWs and studied letters intercepted from the Germans.
In their introduction, the compilers note that the NKVD placed a great deal of emphasis on the "human factor" during the war. This undoubtedly reflected Stalin's egocentric concern with his personal security and the security of his regime. Since the 1930s, he had been waging what amounted to war on his own people. He had reason to fear widespread collaboration with the Germans, a popular uprising, a military coup, or some combination of the three. He panicked in June when the Germans invaded, and again in October as they approached Moscow—he even sent peace feelers to Hitler. Yet, remarkably, the center held, and Russia did not produce a large fifth column or a major quisling. By November, he felt confident enough to declare that "If the Germans want a war of extermination, they shall have it," knowing that the Soviet people would remain loyal.
forces
Ground Forces (Sukhoputnyye Voyskia, SV), Navy (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot, VMF), Air Forces (Voyenno-Vozdushniye Sily, VVS); Airborne Troops (VDV), Strategic Rocket Forces (Raketnyye Voyska Strategicheskogo Naznacheniya, RVSN), and Space Troops (Kosmicheskiye Voyska, KV) are independent "combat arms," not subordinate to any of the three branches; Russian Ground Forces include the following combat arms: motorized-rifle troops, tank troops, missile and artillery troops, air defense of the ground troops (2010)
Jonathan fischer
Andrew olchawa
Geography
Goverment
30 (2010)
total: 620
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 13
1,524 to 2,437 m: 68
914 to 1,523 m: 84
under 914 m: 452 (2010)
over 3,047 m: 51
2,438 to 3,047 m: 201
1,524 to 2,437 m: 126
914 to 1,523 m: 98
under 914 m: 117 (2010)
country comparison to the world: 7
paved: 776,000 km (includes 30,000 km of expressways)
unpaved: 206,000 km
note: includes public, local, and departmental roads
People
15-64 years: 71.8% (male 47,480,851/female 52,113,279)
65 years and over: 13% (male 5,456,639/female 12,614,309) (2011
country comparison to the world: 162
male: 59.8 years
female: 73.17 years
adjective: Russian
note: estimates are of practicing worshipers; Russia has large populations of non-practicing believers and non-believers, a legacy of over seven decades of Soviet rule
total population: 99.4%
male: 99.7%
female: 99.2% (2002 census)
On 3 July, almost two weeks after the German invasion, Stalin addressed the Soviet people for the first time in his famous "scorched earth" speech. "Leave nothing to the enemy," he demanded. The newly released documents reveal that the NKVD was assigned to defend downtown Moscow and the Kremlin, where a last stand would be made against the Nazi marauders if the Red Army were defeated. NKVD units worked with the commandant of the Kremlin garrison to stockpile weapons and ammunition and positioned themselves in the Hall of Columns adjacent to the city's most famous landmark.10
The documents reveal that Stalin was prepared to destroy Moscow to deny it to Hitler, just as Alexander I had denied the city to Napoleon by ordering its destruction in 1812. The French emperor had hoped to replenish his army with grain, gunpowder, and ammunition. Instead, he found a smoldering ruin, a ghost town that had been burned to the ground. Still, Napoleon lingered for a month, expecting the Russian emperor to sue for peace. He was disappointed. Hitler evidently learned nothing from Bonaparte's experience and might have repeated the same scenario if his forces had taken Moscow.
In 1812, Moscow was a city of wood, and Muscovites were able to destroy it by setting fires. In 1941, the situation was more complicated. A new NKVD special operations force called OMSBON (Independent Motorized Brigade for Special Operations) was formed in October 1941. It was the only unit with the technicians and explosives needed to mine the city's most famous sites, including the Kremlin, the orchestra pit of the Bolshoi Theater, the Metropole and National hotels, the Cathedral of the Epiphany, the residence of the Soviet foreign minister, the Foreign Ministry building, and the dachas (country houses) of all Soviet leaders except Stalin, who was afraid that the explosives might be used against him.11 Plans were made to destroy Moscow's telephone system, its water supply, and its power stations, as well as other parts of the urban infrastructure, which would have made the city all but uninhabitable.
The Battle of Moscow was the NKVD's finest hour—no doubt about it. Twenty-four omsbonovtsevi, as the detachments' members were called, received Hero of the Soviet Union medals, the USSR's highest military award for bravery, equivalent to the Congressional Medal of Honor. Stalin and Zhukov both acknowledged their role in saving the city. Thereafter, however, the NKVD and its OMSBON detachments would play second fiddle to the Red Army. From January 1942 on, the main emphasis was on forming special operations units and inserting them in the enemy's rear, where they carried out their own attacks or acted in conjunction with local partisan forces (Part III "The Special Department Reports . . ."). The NKVD conducted a wide range of intelligence and counterintelligence operations behind enemy lines, gathering order-of-battle data on German forces and trying to discern their locations, intentions, combat strengths, and morale. It also carried out assassinations of key Nazi officials, police officers, and Soviet collaborators and traitors in the occupied areas. Occasionally, OMSBON assisted the regular forces, even paving the way for some of the major Soviet counteroffensives of 1943-44, but its role was subordinate rather than independent of the military command.
As the Red Army pushed the Germans back from Moscow, the NKVD began laying the groundwork for intelligence operations and partisan warfare in the areas overrun by the Germans in the first months of the war (Part IV "Fare Thee Well Moscow . . ."). The Moscow Center organized rezidenturas in the occupied areas to spy on the Germans, as well as on the Soviet people living there. NKVD operatives gathered information on the mood and morale of the people, which in the early stages of the war was important for gauging whether the ethnically diverse population, which had suffered greatly under Stalin's bloody dictatorship, would remain loyal to Moscow or go over to the other side. While many did welcome the Germans and then collaborated, most did not. Early NKVD reports indicating that the people considered the conflict to be a holy war to the death convinced Stalin and his entourage that sooner or later the Soviet Union would prevail. The NKVD also monitored the mood and morale of Soviet forces, again looking for indications of discontent and dissatisfaction that might undermine the war effort. They also developed ways of gathering information on the state of mind of Soviet prisoners-of-war—they interrogated German POWs and studied letters intercepted from the Germans.
In their introduction, the compilers note that the NKVD placed a great deal of emphasis on the "human factor" during the war. This undoubtedly reflected Stalin's egocentric concern with his personal security and the security of his regime. Since the 1930s, he had been waging what amounted to war on his own people. He had reason to fear widespread collaboration with the Germans, a popular uprising, a military coup, or some combination of the three. He panicked in June when the Germans invaded, and again in October as they approached Moscow—he even sent peace feelers to Hitler. Yet, remarkably, the center held, and Russia did not produce a large fifth column or a major quisling. By November, he felt confident enough to declare that "If the Germans want a war of extermination, they shall have it," knowing that the Soviet people would remain loyal.