Russian Federation: Tourist & Vacation Guide

Country's codes

International phone code for Russia: +7 xxx

Standard ISO 3166-1:

3 letters: RUS

2 letters (internet domain): .RU

Digital country code: 643

Standard EAN-13 (country barcode): 460-469

Olympic country code: RUS

FIFA code: RUS

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Useful country information

Land area: 494,208,000 sq mi (16,377,742 sq km)

Total area: 496,223,000 sq mi (17,098,242 sq km)

Current government officials

Capital: Moscow, 12,593,000 (2022)

Moscow: Capital City Profile

Other large cities:

Currency: Russian ruble

CurrencyRate

Russia at a Glance

Population

143.4 million (2022 est.)

Life Expectancy

71 years

Nationality

Rossiyane (nationality)
Russkiye (ethnicity)

Languages & People

Languages: Russian (official) 85.7%, Tatar 3.2%, Chechen 1%, other 10.1% (2010 est.)

Ethnicity/Race: Russian 77.7%, Tatar 3.7%, Ukrainian 1.4%, Bashkir 1.1%, Chuvash 1%, Chechen 1%, other 10.2%, unspecified 3.9% (2010 est.)

Religions: Russian Orthodox 15–20%, Muslim 10–15%, other Christian 2% (2006 est.)

A majority of Russians are non-practicing or unaffiliated with any religion, largely a legacy of religious suppression under the Soviet Union. Russia officially recognizes Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as its traditional faiths.

Geography

Spanning eleven time zones, Russia is the largest country on Earth and borders 14 nations: Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, and Ukraine. It also shares maritime borders with Japan, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States.

Background

The defeat of the Russian Empire in World War I led to the collapse of the monarchy and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, resulting in the formation of the USSR.

The brutal rule of Josef Stalin (1924–53) cemented Russian dominance over the Soviet Union at the cost of tens of millions of lives. The Soviet economy and society stagnated over the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (1985–91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize the communist system. His reforms inadvertently unleashed forces that, by December 1991, splintered the USSR into 15 independent republics.

Since then, Russia has struggled to build a durable democratic political system and market economy to replace the strict social, political, and economic controls of the communist era.

Good to know: Russia's sheer size means climate and travel conditions vary enormously by region — Moscow and St. Petersburg sit in a temperate zone, while Siberia and the Russian Far East can see extreme winter cold.