Country
Countries A-Z
Russia
Russian Federation/Russia
Rossiiskaya Federatsiya/Rossiya
Political Status: Formerly the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), a constituent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); present official designations adopted on April 17, 1992; current constitution approved by referendum of December 12, 1993.
Area: 6,592,800 sq. mi. (17,075,400 sq. km.).
Population: 145,166,731 (2002C); 140,795,000 (2008E).
Major Urban Centers (2005E): MOSCOW (10,150,000), St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad, 4,105,000), Novosibirsk (1,406,000), Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky, 1,298,000), Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk, 1,304,000), Samara (formerly Kuibyshev, 1,152,000), Omsk (1,143,000), Rostov-na-Donu (1,058,000), Volgograd (1,033,000), Vladivostok (587,000).
Official Languages: Russian, in addition to languages recognized by the constituent republics and autonomous areas.
Monetary Unit: Ruble (official rate December 1, 2009: 29.05 rubles = $1US).
President: Dmitri MEDVEDEV; elected on March 2, 2008, and inaugurated for a four-year term on May 7, succeeding ...