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123-494: As of 1932, the population of the krai was estimated at 10,290,000 in an area of 351,800 km. 45.9% of the overall population was Russian , and 37.2% of the overall population was Ukrainian . Widespread death by starvation occurred in the krai during the Soviet famine of 1932–33 . As of the 1937 All-Union Census , the krai had a population of 1,635,277 in a smaller area. After undergoing numerous administrative changes, including

246-796: A KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel . He resigned in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg. In 1996, he moved to Moscow to join the administration of President Boris Yeltsin . He briefly served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and then as secretary of the Security Council of Russia before being appointed prime minister in August 1999. Following Yeltsin's resignation, Putin became acting president and, in less than four months,

369-499: A full-scale invasion of Ukraine , which prompted international condemnation and led to expanded sanctions . In September 2022, he announced a partial mobilization and forcibly annexed four Ukrainian oblasts into Russia . In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes related to his alleged criminal responsibility for illegal child abductions during

492-516: A great power ; and one of the most powerful states in Europe after the victory over Napoleon . Peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. The Emperor Alexander II abolished Russian serfdom in 1861, but the peasants fared poorly and revolutionary pressures grew. In the following decades, reform efforts such as the Stolypin reforms of 1906–1914, the constitution of 1906 , and

615-658: A plagiarist according to Western standards. One book from which he copied entire paragraphs is the Russian-language edition of King and Cleland 's Strategic Planning and Policy (1978). Balzer wrote on the Putin thesis and Russian energy policy and concludes along with Olcott that "The primacy of the Russian state in the country’s energy sector is non-negotiable", and cites the insistence on majority Russian ownership of any joint-venture, particularly since BASF signed

738-480: A rave band, has gained popularity in Russia and across Europe. Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as The Battleship Potemkin . Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky , would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors. Eisenstein was a student of Lev Kuleshov , who developed

861-583: A war in eastern Ukraine through several military incursions, resulting in international sanctions and a financial crisis in Russia . He also ordered a military intervention in Syria to support his ally Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war , ultimately securing permanent naval bases in the Eastern Mediterranean . In February 2022, during his fourth presidential term, Putin launched

984-529: A 'grand bargain' with them. This bargain allowed the oligarchs to maintain most of their powers, in exchange for their explicit support for—and alignment with—Putin's government. The Moscow theater hostage crisis occurred in October 2002. Many in the Russian press and in the international media warned that the deaths of 130 hostages in the special forces' rescue operation during the crisis would severely damage President Putin's popularity. However, shortly after

1107-717: A coalition of liberals and moderate socialists, but their failed policies led to seizure of power by the communist Bolsheviks on 25 October 1917 (7 November New Style ). In 1922, Soviet Russia, along with Soviet Ukraine , Soviet Belarus , and the Transcaucasian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR , officially merging all four republics to form the Soviet Union as a country. Between 1922 and 1991,

1230-580: A few in his class of about 45 pupils who were not yet members of the Young Pioneer ( Komsomol ) organization. At the age of 12, he began to practice sambo and judo. In his free time, he enjoyed reading the works of Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , and Lenin. Putin attended Saint Petersburg High School 281 with a German language immersion program. He is fluent in German and often gives speeches and interviews in that language. Putin studied law at

1353-465: A furor among the German press corps. When asked about the incident in a January 2016 interview with Bild , Putin claimed he was not aware of her phobia, adding, "I wanted to make her happy. When I found out that she did not like dogs, I of course apologized." Merkel later told a group of reporters, "I understand why he has to do this – to prove he's a man. He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have

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1476-473: A greater variety of artistic styles in Soviet cinema. The comedies of Eldar Ryazanov and Leonid Gaidai of that time were immensely popular, with many of the catchphrases still in use today. In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk directed an Oscar -winning film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace , which was the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union. In 1969, Vladimir Motyl 's White Sun of

1599-504: A member of the Saint Petersburg city government, was one of the suspects, was dropped. On 30 December 2000, yet another case against the prosecutor general was dropped "for lack of evidence", despite thousands of documents having been forwarded by Swiss prosecutors. On 12 February 2001, Putin signed a similar federal law which replaced the decree of 1999. A case regarding Putin's alleged corruption in metal exports from 1992

1722-637: A potential successor. Following the September 1999 Russian apartment bombings and the invasion of Dagestan by mujahideen , including the former KGB agents, based in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria , Putin's law-and-order image and unrelenting approach to the Second Chechen War soon combined to raise his popularity and allowed him to overtake his rivals. While not formally associated with any party, Putin pledged his support to

1845-555: A private taxi driver to earn extra money, or considered such a job. On 28 June 1991, Putin became head of the Committee for External Relations of the Mayor's Office , with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments and registering business ventures. Within a year, Putin was investigated by the city legislative council led by Marina Salye . It was concluded that he had understated prices and permitted

1968-405: A solo mission on Vostok 6 . In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk , exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2 . Until the 18th century, music in Russia consisted mainly of church music and folk songs and dances. In the 19th century, it was defined by the tension between classical composer Mikhail Glinka along with other members of The Mighty Handful , and

2091-417: A state as a result of in-fighting between members of the princely family that ruled it collectively. After the 13th century, Moscow became a political and cultural center. Moscow has become a center for the unification of Russian lands . By the end of the 15th century, Moscow united the northeastern and northwestern Russian principalities, overthrew the "Mongol yoke" in 1480, and would be transformed into

2214-514: Is россияне ( rossiyane ), derived from Россия ( Rossiya , Russia), which denotes "people of Russia", regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation. In daily usage, those terms are often mixed up, and since Vladimir Putin became president, the ethnic term русские has supplanted the non-ethnic term. The name of the Russians derives from the early medieval Rus' people , a group of Norse merchants and warriors who relocated from across

2337-548: Is Christianity —It has the world's largest Orthodox population . According to differing sociological surveys on religious adherence, between 41% to over 80% of the total population of Russia adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church . Non-religious Russians may associate themselves with the Orthodox faith for cultural reasons. Some Russian people are Old Believers : a relatively small schismatic group of

2460-482: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 45°42′N 43°06′E  /  45.7°N 43.1°E  / 45.7; 43.1 Russians Russians ( Russian : русские , romanized :  russkiye [ˈruskʲɪje] ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe . Their mother tongue is Russian , the most spoken Slavic language . The majority of Russians adhere to Orthodox Christianity , ever since

2583-414: Is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. At 24 years, 10 months and 28 days, he is the longest-serving Russian or Soviet leader since the 30-year tenure of Joseph Stalin . Putin worked as

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2706-472: Is not based on promises." Putin was barred from a third consecutive term by the Constitution . First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was elected his successor. In a power-switching operation on 8 May 2008 , only a day after handing the presidency to Medvedev, Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia , maintaining his political dominance. Putin has said that overcoming the consequences of

2829-508: Is remembered mainly for his novel Oblomov . Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire, while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov , non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky , and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky . The beginning of

2952-445: Is summed up in the popular phrase (sometimes attributed to Emperor Alexander III of Russia ) - Хочешь быть русским - будь им! ( transl.   You want to be Russian - be that! ). Russian is the official and the predominantly spoken language in Russia. It is the most-spoken native language in Europe, the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, as well as the world's most widely spoken Slavic language . Russian

3075-753: Is the third-most used language on the Internet after English and Spanish , and is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Russian literature is considered to be among the world's most influential and developed. It can be traced to the Middle Ages , when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By

3198-793: Is this." In a speech in February 2007 at the Munich Security Conference , Putin complained about the feeling of insecurity engendered by the dominant position in geopolitics of the United States and observed that a former NATO official had made rhetorical promises not to expand into new countries in Eastern Europe. On 14 July 2007, Putin announced that Russia would suspend implementation of its Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe obligations, effective after 150 days, and suspend its ratification of

3321-874: The 2021 Russian census , the number of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation decreased by nearly 5.43 million, from roughly 111 million people in 2010 to approximately 105.5 million in 2021. Among Russians, a number of ethnographic groups stand out, such as: the Northern Russians , the Southern Russians , the Cossacks , the Goryuns , the Kamchadals , the Polekhs , the Pomors ,

3444-622: The Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty , which treaty was shunned by NATO members abeyant Russian withdrawal from Transnistria and the Republic of Georgia . Moscow continued to participate in the joint consultative group, because it hoped that dialogue could lead to the creation of an effective, new conventional arms control regime in Europe. Russia did specify steps that NATO could take to end

3567-533: The Age of Enlightenment , literature had grown in importance, with works from Mikhail Lomonosov , Denis Fonvizin , Gavrila Derzhavin , and Nikolay Karamzin . From the early 1830s, during the Golden Age of Russian Poetry , literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to

3690-575: The Baltic Sea and played an important part in the foudation of the first East Slavic state that later became the Kievan Rus' . The idea of a single " all-Russian nation " encompassing the East Slavic peoples , or a "triune nation" of three brotherly " Great Russian ", " Little Russian " (i.e. Ukrainian ), and " White Russian " (i.e. Belarusian ) peoples became the official doctrine of

3813-558: The Baltic states . A large Russian diaspora (sometimes including Russian-speaking non-Russians), estimated at 25 million people, has developed all over the world, with notable numbers in the United States , Germany , Brazil , and Canada . There are two Russian words which are commonly translated into English as "Russians". One is русские ( russkiye ), which in modern Russia most often means "ethnic Russians". The other one

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3936-670: The Christianization of Kievan Rus' , for several centuries it was influenced predominantly by the Byzantine Empire . Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends into Russia. The 16th century saw the development of the unique tent-like churches ; and the onion dome design, which is a distinctive feature of Russian architecture. In the 17th century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl , gradually paving

4059-487: The Don , Terek , and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of parts of Russia. In accordance with the 2008 research results of Russian and Estonian geneticists, two groups of Russians are distinguished: the northern and southern populations. Central and Southern Russians, to which the majority of Russian populations belong, according to Y chromosome R1a, are included in

4182-589: The Federal Security Service (FSB), the primary intelligence and security organization of the Russian Federation and the successor to the KGB. In 1999, Putin described communism as "a blind alley, far away from the mainstream of civilization". On 9 August 1999, Putin was appointed one of three first deputy prime ministers, and later on that day, was appointed acting prime minister of the Government of

4305-789: The Hunger Plan and the Generalplan Ost , including one million civilian casualties during the Siege of Leningrad . After the victory of the Soviet Union and the Western Allies , the Soviet Union became a superpower opposing Western countries during the Cold War . By the mid-1980s, with Soviet economic and political weaknesses becoming acute, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on major reforms; these culminated in

4428-433: The Mayor of Leningrad . Putin claims that he resigned with the rank of lieutenant colonel on 20 August 1991, on the second day of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt against Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev . Putin said: "As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on", although he noted that the choice was hard because he had spent the best part of his life with "the organs". In May 1990, Putin

4551-689: The Permanent Arbitration Court in The Hague . On 7 October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya , a journalist who exposed corruption in the Russian army and its conduct in Chechnya , was shot in the lobby of her apartment building, on Putin's birthday. The death of Politkovskaya triggered international criticism, with accusations that Putin had failed to protect the country's new independent media. Putin himself said that her death caused

4674-658: The Presidential Staff , a post which he retained until May 1998, and chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department (until June 1998). His predecessor in this position was Alexei Kudrin and his successor was Nikolai Patrushev , both future prominent politicians and Putin's associates. On 3 April 1997, Putin was promoted to 1st class Active State Councillor of

4797-776: The Russian Chinese , the Siberians ( Siberiaks ), Starozhily , some groupings of Old Believers ( Kamenschiks , Lipovans , Semeiskie ), and others. The main ones are the Northern and Southern Russian groups. At the same time, the proposal of the ethnographer Dmitry Zelenin in his major work of 1927 Russian (East Slavic) Ethnography to consider them as separate East Slavic peoples did not find support in scientific circles. Russia's Arctic coastline had been explored and settled by Pomors , Russian settlers from Novgorod . Cossacks inhabited sparsely populated areas in

4920-668: The Russian Empire from the beginning of the 19th century onwards. The ancestors of modern Russians are the Slavic tribes , whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes , one of the largest wetlands in Europe. The East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia with Moscow included in two waves: one moving from Kiev toward present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk toward Novgorod and Rostov . Prior to

5043-817: The Russian Musical Society led by composers Anton and Nikolay Rubinstein . The later tradition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era , was continued into the 20th century by Sergei Rachmaninoff , one of the last great champions of the Romantic style of European classical music. World-renowned composers of the 20th century include Alexander Scriabin , Alexander Glazunov , Igor Stravinsky , Sergei Prokofiev , Dmitri Shostakovich , Georgy Sviridov and Alfred Schnittke . Soviet and Russian conservatories have turned out generations of world-renowned soloists. Among

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5166-488: The Russian economy grew on average by seven percent per year, driven by economic reforms and a fivefold increase in the price of oil and gas. Additionally, Putin led Russia in a conflict against Chechen separatists , reestablishing federal control over the region. While serving as prime minister under Medvedev, he oversaw a military conflict with Georgia and enacted military and police reforms . In his third presidential term, Russia annexed Crimea and supported

5289-516: The State Duma (1906–1917) attempted to open and liberalize the economy and political system, but the Emperors refused to relinquish autocratic rule and resisted sharing their power. A combination of economic breakdown, war-weariness , and discontent with the autocratic system of government triggered revolution in Russia in 1917 . The overthrow of the monarchy initially brought into office

5412-589: The Trinity as outlined by the Nicene Creed , Orthodox fasts , military service, and practices including water baptism . Other world religions have negligible representation among ethnic Russians. The largest of these groups are Islam with over 100,000 followers from national minorities, and Baptists with over 85,000 Russian adherents. Others are mostly Pentecostals , Evangelicals , Seventh-day Adventists , Lutherans and Jehovah's Witnesses . Since

5535-650: The Tsardom of Russia after Ivan IV was crowned tsar in 1547. In 1721, Tsar Peter the Great renamed his state as the Russian Empire , hoping to associate it with historical and cultural achievements of ancient Rus' – in contrast to his policies oriented towards Western Europe. The state now extended from the eastern borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Pacific Ocean , and became

5658-771: The United States . Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and South Beach, Staten Island in New York City are examples of large communities of recent Russian and Russian-Jewish immigrants. Other examples are Sunny Isles Beach , a northern suburb of Miami , and West Hollywood of the Los Angeles area. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many Russians who were identified with the White army moved to China  — most of them settling in Harbin and Shanghai . By

5781-415: The atmosphere of Venus , and founded modern geology . Since the times of Nikolay Lobachevsky , who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry , and a prominent tutor Pafnuty Chebyshev , Russian mathematicians became among the world's most influential. Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table , the main framework of modern chemistry . Sofya Kovalevskaya was a pioneer among women in mathematics in

5904-411: The de facto architectural style, and Nicholas I opened the gate of Eclecticism to Russia. The second half of the 19th-century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival style. In early 20th-century, Russian neoclassical revival became a trend. Prevalent styles of the late 20th-century were the Art Nouveau , Constructivism , and Socialist Classicism . Russia's largest religion

6027-399: The destruction battalion of the NKVD . Later, he was transferred to the regular army and was severely wounded in 1942. Putin's maternal grandmother was killed by the German occupiers of Tver region in 1941, and his maternal uncles disappeared on the Eastern Front during World War II. On 1 September 1960, Putin started at School No. 193 at Baskov Lane, near his home. He was one of

6150-462: The dissolution of the Soviet Union , leaving Russia again alone and marking the beginning of the post-Soviet Russian period. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic renamed itself the Russian Federation and became one of several successors to the Soviet Union . Ethnic Russians historically migrated within the areas of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union , though they were sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderland areas by

6273-578: The mixed economy and diverse society and culture of the 1920s through the command economy and repressions of the Joseph Stalin era to the "era of stagnation" from the 1960s to the 1980s. The actions of the Soviet government caused the death of millions of citizens in the famine of 1930–1933 and the Great Purge . The attack by Nazi Germany and the ensuing war , together with the Holocaust , again claimed millions of lives . Millions of Russian civilians and prisoners of war were killed or starved to death during Nazi Germany's genocidal policies called

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6396-430: The 15th anniversary party of Gazprom , its employees threatened Ukraine with a stoppage of flow. On 4 April 2008 at the NATO Bucharest summit , invitee Putin told George W. Bush and other conference delegates: "We view the appearance of a powerful military bloc on our border as a direct threat to the security of our nation. The claim that this process is not directed against Russia will not suffice. National security

6519-479: The 1930s, Harbin had 100,000 Russians. Many of these Russians moved back to the Soviet Union after World War II . Today, a large group in northern China still speak Russian as a second language. Russians ( eluosizu ) are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China (as the Russ ); there are approximately 15,600 Russian Chinese living mostly in northern Xinjiang , and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang . According to

6642-414: The 1930s, died in infancy, and Viktor, born in 1940, died of diphtheria and starvation in 1942 during the Siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany 's forces in World War II . Putin's mother was a factory worker, and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy , serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. During the early stage of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union , his father served in

6765-421: The 19th century. Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006, both of which he declined. Alexander Popov was among the inventors of radio , while Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were co-inventors of laser and maser . Zhores Alferov contributed significantly to

6888-450: The 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry . This era had poets such as Alexander Blok , Anna Akhmatova , Boris Pasternak , Konstantin Balmont , Marina Tsvetaeva , Vladimir Mayakovsky , and Osip Mandelstam . It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin , Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin , Leonid Andreyev , Yevgeny Zamyatin , Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely . After

7011-440: The Desert was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern ; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space. In 2002, Russian Ark was the first feature film ever to be shot in a single take. Today, the Russian cinema industry continues to expand. The history of Russian architecture begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs, and the architecture of Kievan Rus' . Following

7134-436: The East German communist regime commended Putin with a bronze medal for "faithful service to the National People's Army ". Putin has publicly conveyed delight over his activities in Dresden, once recounting his confrontations with anti-communist protestors of 1989 who attempted the occupation of Stasi buildings in the city. "Putin and his colleagues were reduced mainly to collecting press clippings , thus contributing to

7257-493: The Gazprom Nord Stream - Yuzhno-Russkoye deal in 2004 with a 49–51 structure, as opposed to the older 50–50 split of British Petroleum 's TNK-BP project. In 1975, Putin joined the KGB and trained at the 401st KGB School in Okhta, Leningrad . After training, he worked in the Second Chief Directorate ( counterintelligence ), before he was transferred to the First Chief Directorate , where he monitored foreigners and consular officials in Leningrad. In September 1984, Putin

7380-404: The German Democratic Republic or of the USSR. He explained that many documents were left to Germany only because the furnace burst but many documents of the KGB villa were sent to Moscow. After the collapse of the Communist East German government , Putin was to resign from active KGB service because of suspicions aroused regarding his loyalty during demonstrations in Dresden and earlier, although

7503-407: The Gulag camps. Russian philosophy has been greatly influential. Alexander Herzen is known as one of the fathers of agrarian populism . Mikhail Bakunin is referred to as the father of anarchism . Peter Kropotkin was the most important theorist of anarcho-communism . Mikhail Bakhtin 's writings have significantly inspired scholars. Helena Blavatsky gained international following as

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7626-492: The KGB and the Soviet Army still operated in eastern Germany. He returned to Leningrad in early 1990 as a member of the "active reserves", where he worked for about three months with the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University , reporting to Vice-Rector Yuriy Molchanov , while working on his doctoral dissertation. There, he looked for new KGB recruits, watched the student body, and renewed his friendship with his former professor, Anatoly Sobchak , soon to be

7749-458: The KGB villa in Dresden for the official authorities of the would-be united Germany to prevent demonstrators, including KGB and Stasi agents, from obtaining and destroying them. He then supposedly burnt only the KGB files, in a few hours, but saved the archives of the Soviet Cultural Center for the German authorities. Nothing is told about the selection criteria during this burning; for example, concerning Stasi files or about files of other agencies of

7872-409: The Kremlin. Khodorkovsky was arrested, Yukos was bankrupted, and the company's assets were auctioned at below-market value, with the largest share acquired by the state company Rosneft . The fate of Yukos was seen as a sign of a broader shift of Russia towards a system of state capitalism . This was underscored in July 2014, when shareholders of Yukos were awarded $ 50 billion in compensation by

7995-464: The Leningrad State University named after Andrei Zhdanov (now Saint Petersburg State University ) in 1970 and graduated in 1975. His thesis was on "The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law". While there, he was required to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU); he remained a member until it ceased to exist in 1991. Putin met Anatoly Sobchak , an assistant professor who taught business law , and who later became

8118-441: The RAF in West Germany. Klaus Zuchold, who claimed to be recruited by Putin, said that Putin handled a neo-Nazi , Rainer Sonntag, and attempted to recruit an author of a study on poisons. Putin reportedly met Germans to be recruited for wireless communications affairs together with an interpreter. He was involved in wireless communications technologies in South-East Asia due to trips of German engineers, recruited by him, there and to

8241-492: The Russian Federation by President Yeltsin . Yeltsin also announced that he wanted to see Putin as his successor. Later on that same day, Putin agreed to run for the presidency. On 16 August, the State Duma approved his appointment as prime minister with 233 votes in favor (vs. 84 against, 17 abstained), while a simple majority of 226 was required, making him Russia's fifth prime minister in fewer than eighteen months. On his appointment, few expected Putin, virtually unknown to

8364-409: The Russian Federation —the highest federal state civilian service rank . On 27 June 1997, at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute , guided by rector Vladimir Litvinenko , Putin defended his Candidate of Science dissertation in economics, titled Strategic Planning of the Reproduction of the Mineral Resource Base of a Region under Conditions of the Formation of Market Relations . This exemplified

8487-473: The Russian Orthodoxy that rejected the liturgical reforms introduced in the 17th century. Other schisms from Orthodoxy include Doukhobors which in the 18th century rejected secular government, the Russian Orthodox priests, icons, all church ritual, the Bible as the supreme source of divine revelation and the divinity of Jesus, and later emigrated into Canada. An even earlier sect were Molokans which formed in 1550 and rejected Czar's divine right to rule , icons,

8610-627: The Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. In the 1930s, Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky , who laid the foundations of this style. Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era. Nikolay Ostrovsky 's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include Vladimir Nabokov . Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , who wrote about life in

8733-435: The Russian ethnicity - and as a historic great power with imperial expansionist tendencies the Russian state has sometimes encouraged Russian-centred monoculturalism. Steppe peoples, Tatars, Baltic Germans, Lithuanians and native Siberians in Rus' , Muscovy or the Russian Empire could in theory become "Russians" ( Russian : русские ) simply by accepting Russian Orthodoxy as their faith. The attitude of ready inclusivity

8856-444: The Russians is derived from the people of Rus' and the territory of Rus' . Russians share many historical and cultural traits with other European peoples, and especially with other East Slavic ethnic groups, specifically Belarusians and Ukrainians . The vast majority of Russians live in native Russia, but notable minorities are scattered throughout other post-Soviet states such as Belarus , Kazakhstan , Moldova , Ukraine , and

8979-472: The Saint Petersburg branch of the pro-government Our Home – Russia political party, the liberal party of power founded by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin . In 1995, he managed the legislative election campaign for that party, and from 1995 through June 1997, he was the leader of its Saint Petersburg branch. In June 1996, Sobchak lost his bid for re-election in Saint Petersburg, and Putin, who had led his election campaign, resigned from his positions in

9102-809: The Slavic migration in the 6-7th centuries, the Suzdal-Murom and Novgorod-Rostov areas were populated by Finnic peoples , including the Merya , the Muromians , and the Meshchera . From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs slowly assimilated the native Finnic peoples, so that by year 1100, the majority of the population in Western Russia was Slavic-speaking. Recent genetic studies confirm

9225-1122: The Tsarist and later Soviet government. Sometimes ethnic Russian communities, such as the Lipovans who settled in the Danube delta or the Doukhobors in Canada , emigrated as religious dissidents fleeing the central authority. There are also small Russian communities in the Balkans — including Lipovans in the Danube delta — Central European nations such as Germany and Poland , as well as Russians settled in China , Japan , South Korea , Mexico , Brazil , Argentina and Australia . These communities identify themselves to varying degrees as Russians, citizens of these countries, or both. Significant numbers of Russians emigrated to Canada , Australia and

9348-569: The US, for the first time since the downfall of the USSR. In December 2007, United Russia —the governing party that supports the policies of Putin—won 64.24% of the popular vote in their run for State Duma according to election preliminary results. United Russia's victory in the December 2007 elections was seen by many as an indication of strong popular support of the then Russian leadership and its policies. On 11 February 2008, while Putin addressed

9471-616: The West. However, a 2023 investigation by Der Spiegel reported that the anonymous source had never been an RAF member and is "considered a notorious fabulist" with "several previous convictions, including for making false statements". According to Putin's official biography, during the fall of the Berlin Wall that began on 9 November 1989, he saved the files of the Soviet Cultural Center (House of Friendship) and of

9594-503: The best known are violinists David Oistrakh and Gidon Kremer , cellist Mstislav Rostropovich , pianists Vladimir Horowitz , Sviatoslav Richter , and Emil Gilels , and vocalist Galina Vishnevskaya . During the Soviet times, popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two balladeers — Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava , and performers such as Alla Pugacheva . Jazz , even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of

9717-494: The city administration. He moved to Moscow and was appointed as deputy chief of the Presidential Property Management Department headed by Pavel Borodin . He occupied this position until March 1997. He was responsible for the foreign property of the state and organized the transfer of the former assets of the Soviet Union and the CPSU to the Russian Federation. On 26 March 1997, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Putin deputy chief of

9840-780: The co-author of the Russian constitution . Putin was influential in Sobchak's career in Saint Petersburg, and Sobchak was influential in Putin's career in Moscow. In 1997, Putin received a degree in economics ( kandidat ekonomicheskikh nauk ) at the Saint Petersburg Mining University for a thesis on energy dependencies and their instrumentalisation in foreign policy. His supervisor was Vladimir Litvinenko , who in 2000 and again in 2004 managed his presidential election campaigns in St Petersburg. Igor Danchenko and Clifford Gaddy consider Putin to be

9963-537: The commission for the preparation of agreements on the delimitation of the power of the regions and head of the federal center attached to the president, replacing Sergey Shakhray . After Putin's appointment, the commission completed no such agreements, although during Shakhray's term as the head of the Commission 46 such agreements had been signed. Later, after becoming president, Putin cancelled all 46 agreements. On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Putin director of

10086-635: The contemporary Northern Russians also are genetically close of all Slavic peoples only to the Poles and similar to the Balts. However, this does not mean the northern Russians origin from the Balts or the Poles, more likely, that all the peoples of the Nordic gene pool are descendants of Paleo-European population, which has remained around Baltic Sea . Russians have sometimes found it useful to emphasize their self-perceived ability to assimilate other people to

10209-480: The country's most popular musical forms. The Ganelin Trio have been described by critics as the greatest ensemble of free-jazz in continental Europe . By the 1980s, rock music became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as Aria , Aquarium , DDT , and Kino . Pop music in Russia has continued to flourish since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as t.A.T.u. In the recent times, Little Big ,

10332-560: The creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics . Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of semiconductor junctions , and discovered light-emitting diodes . Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of geochemistry , biogeochemistry , and radiogeology . Élie Metchnikoff is known for his groundbreaking research in immunology . Ivan Pavlov is known chiefly for his work in classical conditioning . Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics . Nikolai Vavilov

10455-480: The custom in Russia whereby a young rising official would write a scholarly work in mid-career. Putin's thesis was plagiarized . Fellows at the Brookings Institution found that 15 pages were copied from an American textbook. On 25 May 1998, Putin was appointed First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff for the regions, in succession to Viktoriya Mitina . On 15 July, he was appointed head of

10578-636: The establishment of the Parliamentary elections and a Regional Government. Throughout the Second Chechen War , Russia severely disabled the Chechen rebel movement; however, sporadic attacks by rebels continued to occur throughout the northern Caucasus. On 14 March 2004, Putin was elected to the presidency for a second term, receiving 71% of the vote. The Beslan school hostage crisis took place on 1–3 September 2004; more than 330 people died, including 186 children. The near 10-year period prior to

10701-520: The export of metals valued at $ 93 million in exchange for foreign food aid that never arrived. Despite the investigators' recommendation that Putin be fired, Putin remained head of the Committee for External Relations until 1996. From 1994 to 1996, he held several other political and governmental positions in Saint Petersburg. In March 1994, Putin was appointed as first deputy chairman of the Government of Saint Petersburg . In May 1995, he organized

10824-418: The fall of the Soviet Union various new religious movements have sprung up and gathered a following among ethnic Russians. The most prominent of these are Rodnovery , the revival of the Slavic native religion also common to other Slavic nations . Football is the most popular sport in Russia. The Soviet Union national football team became the first European champions by winning Euro 1960 , and reached

10947-653: The finals of Euro 1988 . In 1956 and 1988, the Soviet Union won gold at the Olympic football tournament . Russian clubs CSKA Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and 2008. The Russian national football team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008 . Russia was the host nation for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup , and the 2018 FIFA World Cup . Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952)

11070-423: The fore. Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including Mikhail Lermontov , Nikolay Nekrasov , Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy , Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet . The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol . Then came Ivan Turgenev , who mastered both short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned. Ivan Goncharov

11193-413: The formation of the Russian identity in the Middle Ages . By total numbers, they are the largest Slavic and European nation . Genetic studies show that Russians are closely related to Poles , Belarusians , Ukrainians , as well as Estonians , Latvians , Lithuanians and Finns . They were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus' . The Russian word for

11316-429: The four alliance members outside the original treaty, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia, join it." In early 2007, " Dissenters' Marches " were organized by the opposition group The Other Russia , led by former chess champion Garry Kasparov and national-Bolshevist leader Eduard Limonov . Following prior warnings, demonstrations in several Russian cities were met by police action, which included interfering with

11439-571: The general "East European" gene cluster with the rest East and West Slavs (Poles, Czechs and Slovaks), as well as the non-Slavic Hungarians and Aromanians . Genetically, East Slavs are quite similar to West Slavs; such genetic similarity is somewhat unusual for genetics with such a wide settlement of the Slavs, especially Russians. The high unity of the autosomal markers of the East Slavic populations and their significant differences from

11562-423: The general public, to last any longer than his predecessors. He was initially regarded as a Yeltsin loyalist; like other prime ministers of Boris Yeltsin , Putin did not choose ministers himself, his cabinet was determined by the presidential administration. Yeltsin's main opponents and would-be successors were already campaigning to replace the ailing president, and they fought hard to prevent Putin's emergence as

11685-467: The government more problems than her writings. In January 2007, Putin met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at his Black Sea residence in Sochi , two weeks after Russia switched off oil supplies to Germany. Putin brought his black Labrador Konni in front of Merkel, who has a noted phobia of dogs and looked visibly uncomfortable in its presence, adding, "I'm sure it will behave itself", causing

11808-503: The groundbreaking Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school , the All-Union Institute of Cinematography . Dziga Vertov 's " Kino-Eye " theory had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism. Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including Chapaev , The Cranes Are Flying , and Ballad of a Soldier . The 1960s and 1970s saw

11931-713: The history of Russia became essentially the history of the Soviet Union , effectively an ideologically based state roughly conterminous with the Russian Empire before the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . From its first years, government in the Soviet Union based itself on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918. The approach to the building of socialism, however, varied over different periods in Soviet history: from

12054-591: The imprisonment and suppression of political opponents , intimidation and censorship of independent media in Russia , and a lack of free and fair elections . Russia has consistently received very low scores on Transparency International 's Corruption Perceptions Index , The Economist Democracy Index , Freedom House 's Freedom in the World index, and the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index . Putin

12177-491: The leading theoretician of Theosophy , and co-founded the Theosophical Society . Vladimir Lenin , a major revolutionary, developed a variant of communism known as Leninism . Leon Trotsky , on the other hand, founded Trotskyism . Alexander Zinoviev was a prominent philosopher in the second half of the 20th century. Mikhail Lomonosov proposed the conservation of mass in chemical reactions , discovered

12300-592: The loss of the majority of its territory to the new Azov-Black Sea Krai on 10 January 1934, it was renamed Ordzhonikidze Krai ( Орджоникидзевский край ), after Sergo Ordzhonikidze , on 13 March 1937, and Stavropol Krai on 12 January 1943. Since 19 January 2010, the region has been divided between the North Caucasian Federal District and the Southern Federal District . This Russian history –related article

12423-399: The mountains of useless information produced by the KGB", Russian-American Masha Gessen wrote in their 2012 biography of Putin. His work was also downplayed by former Stasi spy chief Markus Wolf and Putin's former KGB colleague Vladimir Usoltsev. Journalist Catherine Belton wrote in 2020 that this downplaying was actually cover for Putin's involvement in KGB coordination and support for

12546-586: The neighboring Finnic, Turkic and Caucasian peoples were revealed. Northern Russians , according to mtDNA , Y chromosome and autosomal marker CCR5de132, are included in the "North European" gene cluster (the Poles , the Balts , Germanic and Baltic Finnic peoples ). Consequently, the already existing biologo-genetic studies have made all hypotheses about the mixing of the Russians with non-Slavic ethnic groups or their "non-Slavism" obsolete or pseudoscientific. At

12669-609: The newly formed Unity Party , which won the second largest percentage of the popular vote (23.3%) in the December 1999 Duma elections , and in turn supported Putin. On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and, according to the Constitution of Russia , Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation . On assuming this role, Putin went on a previously scheduled visit to Russian troops in Chechnya. The first presidential decree that Putin signed on 31 December 1999

12792-550: The period preceding Putin's rule. In 2005, the National Priority Projects were launched to improve Russia's health care , education , housing , and agriculture . The continued criminal prosecution of the wealthiest man in Russia at the time, president of Yukos oil and gas company Mikhail Khodorkovsky , for fraud and tax evasion was seen by the international press as a retaliation for Khodorkovsky's donations to both liberal and communist opponents of

12915-518: The presence of a Finnic substrate in modern Russian population. Outside archaeological remains, little is known about the predecessors to Russians in general prior to 859 AD, when the Primary Chronicle starts its records. By 600 AD, the Slavs are believed to have split linguistically into southern , western , and eastern branches. The Rus' state was established in northern Russia in

13038-419: The rise of Putin after the dissolution of Soviet rule was a time of upheaval in Russia. In a 2005 Kremlin speech, Putin characterized the collapse of the Soviet Union as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century". Putin elaborated, "Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself." The country's cradle-to-grave social safety net was gone and life expectancy declined in

13161-618: The same time, the long-standing identification of the Northern Russian and Southern Russian ethnographic groups by ethnologists was confirmed. The previous conclusions of physical anthropologists, historians and linguists (see, in particular, the works of the academician Valentin Yanin ) about the proximity of the ancient Novgorod Slavs and their language not to the East, but to west Baltic Slavs . As can be seen from genetic resources ,

13284-465: The siege had ended, the Russian president enjoyed record public approval ratings—83% of Russians declared themselves satisfied with Putin and his handling of the siege. In 2003, a referendum was held in Chechnya , adopting a new constitution which declares that the Republic of Chechnya is a part of Russia; on the other hand, the region did acquire autonomy. Chechnya has been gradually stabilized with

13407-484: The suspension. "These include [NATO] members cutting their arms allotments and further restricting temporary weapons deployments on each NATO member's territory. Russia also want[ed] constraints eliminated on how many forces it can deploy in its southern and northern flanks. Moreover, it is pressing NATO members to ratify a 1999 updated version of the accord, known as the Adapted CFE Treaty , and demanding that

13530-572: The terrorist Red Army Faction , whose members frequently hid in East Germany with the support of the Stasi. Dresden was preferred as a "marginal" town with only a small presence of Western intelligence services. According to an anonymous source who claimed to be a former RAF member, at one of these meetings in Dresden the militants presented Putin with a list of weapons that were later delivered to

13653-526: The travel of the protesters and the arrests of as many as 150 people who attempted to break through police lines. On 12 September 2007, Putin dissolved the government upon the request of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov . Fradkov commented that it was to give the President a "free hand" in the run-up to the parliamentary election. Viktor Zubkov was appointed the new prime minister. On 19 September 2007, Putin's nuclear-capable bombers commenced exercises near

13776-502: The war . In April 2021, after a referendum , he signed into law constitutional amendments that included one allowing him to run for reelection twice more, potentially extending his presidency to 2036. In March 2024, he was reelected to another term. Under Putin's rule , the Russian political system has been transformed into an authoritarian dictatorship with a personality cult . His rule has been marked by endemic corruption and widespread human rights violations , including

13899-514: The way for the Naryshkin baroque of the 1690s. After the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia's architecture became influenced by Western European styles. The 18th-century taste for Rococo architecture led to the splendid works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers. During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of Neoclassical architecture . During Alexander I 's rule, Empire style became

14022-550: The year 862, which was ruled by the Varangians . Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became the first major cities of the new union of immigrants from Scandinavia with the Slavs and Finns . In 882, the prince Oleg seized Kiev , thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the East Slavs under one authority. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as

14145-427: Was appointed as an advisor on international affairs to the mayor of Leningrad Anatoly Sobchak . In a 2017 interview with Oliver Stone , Putin said that he resigned from the KGB in 1991, following the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, as he did not agree with what had happened and did not want to be part of the intelligence in the new administration. According to Putin's statements in 2018 and 2021, he may have worked as

14268-433: Was best known for having identified the centers of origin of cultivated plants. Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés . Igor Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer . Vladimir Zworykin was the inventor of the iconoscope and kinescope television systems. Theodosius Dobzhansky was the central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis . George Gamow

14391-467: Was born on 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia), the youngest of three children of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin (1911–1999) and Maria Ivanovna Putina ( née  Shelomova ; 1911–1998). His grandfather, Spiridon Putin (1879–1965), was a personal cook to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin . Putin's birth was preceded by the deaths of two brothers: Albert, born in

14514-581: Was brought back by Marina Salye , but she was silenced and forced to leave Saint Petersburg. While his opponents had been preparing for an election in June 2000, Yeltsin's resignation resulted in the presidential elections being held on 26 March 2000; Putin won in the first round with 53% of the vote. The inauguration of President Putin occurred on 7 May 2000. He appointed the minister of finance , Mikhail Kasyanov , as prime minister. The first major challenge to Putin's popularity came in August 2000, when he

14637-449: Was criticized for the alleged mishandling of the Kursk submarine disaster . That criticism was largely because it took several days for Putin to return from vacation, and several more before he visited the scene. Between 2000 and 2004, Putin set about the reconstruction of the impoverished condition of the country, apparently winning a power-struggle with the Russian oligarchs , reaching

14760-410: Was elected to his first term as president. He was reelected in 2004 . Due to constitutional limitations of two consecutive presidential terms, Putin served as prime minister again from 2008 to 2012 under Dmitry Medvedev . He returned to the presidency in 2012, following an election marked by allegations of fraud and protests , and was reelected in 2018 . During Putin's initial presidential tenure,

14883-589: Was one of the foremost advocates of the Big Bang theory. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is called the father of theoretical astronautics , whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Valentin Glushko , and many others. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin . In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space , having flown

15006-597: Was sent to Moscow for further training at the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute . From 1985 to 1990, he served in Dresden , East Germany , using a cover identity as a translator. While posted in Dresden, Putin worked as one of the KGB's liaison officers to the Stasi secret police and was reportedly promoted to lieutenant colonel . According to the official Kremlin presidential site,

15129-480: Was titled "On guarantees for the former president of the Russian Federation and the members of his family". This ensured that "corruption charges against the outgoing President and his relatives" would not be pursued. This was most notably targeted at the Mabetex bribery case in which Yeltsin's family members were involved. On 30 August 2000, a criminal investigation (number 18/238278-95) in which Putin himself, as

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