Russia

Russia is the world's biggest country with its vast territory that occupies the east of Europe and the north of Asia, i.e. 11,46% of the Earth's land area. Russia is washed by the waters of twelve seas and three oceans: the Arctic in the north, the Atlantic in the west and the Pacific in the east. The country has thousands of rivers and about 2 million lakes, among which are the Caspian Sea, the biggest lake in the world, and Baikal, the world's deepest fresh-water lake.

Neighboring 18 countries (Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, Japan and the U.S.) and having world's longest land border of about 60.000 km (over 37.000 miles) Russia has a population of 142.905.200 people (according to the census of 2010).

The Russian Federation consists of 83 federal subjects, among them there are 2 cities of federal importance - Moscow, the capital of Russia with a population of more than 11 million inhabitants, and St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia also called "the northern capital" with its population of around 5 million people. There are 10 more cities in Russia with a population more than a million inhabitants - Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Omsk, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Ufa and Volgograd.

With about 80% of the population being ethnic Russians, the rest 20% covers more than 150 nationalities living in Russia. The official language is Russian. As for the religion communities, the majority of Russian people are Orthodox Christians, there are also many Muslims, Catholics, Hebrews and Buddhists.