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Russia

✨ The giant of the steppes and space

Russia is the world’s largest country by area, stretching across eastern Europe and northern Asia. It covers about 17.1 million square kilometres and spans eleven time zones. Moscow is the capital and largest city, while Saint Petersburg is another major cultural and economic centre.

The country has a very long coastline along the Arctic and Pacific oceans, as well as smaller seas connected to the Atlantic and Pacific systems. Its landscape includes vast plains, the Ural Mountains, Siberian forests and the mountain ranges of the Caucasus and the Russian Far East. Russia shares land borders with fourteen countries, including Norway, Finland, Poland, China, Mongolia and North Korea.

Russia has a wide range of climates, from Arctic conditions in the far north to more temperate environments in the south. Much of Siberia experiences long, cold winters and large seasonal differences in temperature. The country contains major rivers such as the Volga, the longest river in Europe, and the Lena, Ob and Yenisei in Siberia.

Lake Baikal, in southern Siberia, is the world’s deepest freshwater lake and contains a large amount of the planet’s unfrozen fresh water. Russian is the country’s main official language at the federal level, while many other languages are spoken by different communities. Russia’s territory extends across both Europe and Asia, making it a transcontinental country.

💡 Did you know?

Do you know Matryoshka dolls? These are hollow wooden dolls, painted with vibrant colors. The surprise is that when you open the large doll, you find a smaller one inside, and yet another inside that one! Sometimes, there are dozens hidden like this. They symbolize family, and they say that if you put a wish inside the smallest doll, it might come true when you close all the others over it.

Russia was the great pioneer of space exploration. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the very first human to travel into space and orbit the Earth in his small spacecraft Vostok 1. Before him, the Russians had already sent the first satellite, Sputnik, and even a dog named Laika. Today, Russian cosmonauts continue to work with astronauts from all over the world in the International Space Station.

In the south of Siberia lies Lake Baikal, a treasure of nature. It is the deepest lake in the world (over 1,600 meters!) and alone contains about one-fifth of all the surface fresh water on Earth. In winter, the lake freezes completely and becomes so solid that cars can be driven on it. The ice is so pure that you can see through it down to a depth of 40 meters, like through a giant glass pane!