James Baquet

Russia is not particularly hard to find on the map. It covers the entire northern edge of Asia, and dominates Eastern Europe. On two continents, it’s split by the Ural Mountains. The world’s largest country by area also covers about one-eighth of the world’s inhabited land, spanning 11 time zones. It is also the ninth most-populous country, with higher density in the west.

That’s where Moscow, the nation’s capital and largest city, is located, as well as St. Petersburg, the second largest city and “cultural capital,” known for nearly seven decades as Leningrad, after the revolutionary leader and theorist Vladimir Lenin.

When I was born, there was no country called “Russia” (though we continued to call it so). Instead, it was properly the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the largest constituent of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It had over half of the USSR’s population. With Moscow at its center, it was by far the most important of the SRs. One could be forgiven for extending its name to the entire country, which, indeed, was labeled Russia both before and after the Soviet period.

The main portion of the country shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It also has a discontiguous territory called Kaliningrad Oblast which touches Lithuania and Poland, and it shares maritime borders with Japan and the U.S. state of Alaska. Many of these countries were once Soviet Republics.

By the 18th century, the Russian Empire was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland in the west to Alaska in the east. This period saw some of its greatest rulers, including Peter the Great (1672-1725) and Catherine the Great (1729-1796). The last tsar, Nicholas II, abdicated in 1917 and was later executed as the result of the February Revolution. In the same year, the October Revolution led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which lasted until the formation of the current Russian Federation in 1991.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. organization of loosely-allied entities

2. spreading (across)

3. Russian leader, a word derived from the Latin “Caesar”

4. killed, usually in a formal manner

5. part, piece

6. gave up a throne

7. one who produces ideas

8. not connected, separate

9. 24 divisions of the earth

10. called, named