Jump to content

Portal:Russia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome to The Russia Portal

The flag of Russia

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...)

Featured article

  Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

Selected picture

Did you know...

Blue Bridge

In this month

Moscow Kremlin

Glass of mors

Mors (Russian: морс) is a Russian non-carbonated fruit drink prepared from berries, generally lingonberries and cranberries (alternatively bilberries, strawberries, raspberries or sea-buckthorn may be used), popular in Russia, Ukraine and other Slavic countries. (Full article...)

Selected biography – show another

Head of a man with dark greying hair, glasses and a long beard
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

11 November 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
Mykolaiv strikes, Zaporizhzhia strikes
Five people are killed and 18 others, including five children, are injured in Russian air strikes on Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (DW) (Arab News)
10 November 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
Attacks in Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
November 2024 Moscow drone attack
One person is injured and at least 36 flights are diverted when 34 Ukrainian drones strike Moscow, Russia. (CBC News)
9 November 2024 – North Korea–Russia relations
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs into law the North Korean–Russian Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, a mutual defense pact with North Korea. (Reuters)

More Did you know (auto generated)

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

WikiProjects

Selected quote

A teenager is carrying sign "Berezovsky, we are with you!" during police attack on a 2007 Dissenters March in Saint Petersburg.
Elections are not a viable means of ensuring democratic change in Russia.
Extended content
Featured articles
Featured lists
A-Class articles
Good articles

Topics

Tasks

Things you can do Привет and Welcome! The following is a list of things you can do:

Russian editions of Wikimedia projects

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Wikiproject information

Discover Wikipedia using portals