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Russia (Russian: Росси́я, Rossiya; pronounced ), also the Russian Federation (Russian: Росси́йская Федера́ция, Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; pronounced , listen (help·info)), is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of Eurasia. With an area of 17,075,400 square kilometres, Russia is the largest country in the world by land mass, and covers almost twice the territory of the next-largest country, Canada. It has the world's eighth largest population. Russia shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from NW to SE): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It is also close to the United States and Japan across relatively small stretches of water.

Formerly the dominant republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia is now an independent country and an influential member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, since the Union's dissolution in December 1991. During the Soviet era, Russia was officially called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Russia is considered the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic matters.

Most of the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet Union, then one of the world's two superpowers, lay in Russia. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's global role was greatly diminished compared to that of the former Soviet Union. In October 2005, the federal statistics agency reported that Russia's population has shrunk by more than half a million people dipping to 143 million, although Russia became the second country in the world by the number of immigrants from abroad.

History

Ancient Russia

Prior to the Common Era, the vast lands of Southern Russia were home to tribes that were not united, such as Proto-Indo-Europeans and Scythians. Between the third and sixth centuries, the steppes were overwhelmed by successive waves of nomadic invasions, led by warlike tribes which would often move on to Europe, as was the case with Huns and Turkish Avars. A Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled South Russia through the eighth century. They were important allies of the Byzantine Empire and waged a series of successful wars against the Arab Califates.

Read more at Wikipedia.org