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Basil’s Cathedral is a brightly colored landmark in Moscow. Russia, the largest country in the world, occupies one-tenth of all the land on Earth. The Russian landscape varies from desert to frozen coastline, tall mountains russian tourist profile giant marshes.

Much of Russia is made up of rolling, treeless plains called steppes. Siberia, which occupies three-quarters of Russia, is dominated by sprawling pine forests called taigas. Russia has about 100,000 rivers, including some of the longest and most powerful in the world. It also has many lakes, including Europe’s two largest: Ladoga and Onega. Lake Baikal in Siberia contains more water than any other lake on Earth.

There are about 120 ethnic groups in Russia who speak more than a hundred languages. Roughly 80 percent of Russians trace their ancestry to the Slavs who settled in the country 1,500 years ago. Other major groups include Tatars, who came with the Mongol invaders, and Ukrainians. Russia is known all over the world for its thinkers and artists, including writers like Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and ballet dancers including Rudolf Nureyev.

As big as Russia is, it’s no surprise that it is home to a large number of ecosystems and species. Its forests, steppes, and tundras provide habitat for many rare animals, including Asiatic black bears, snow leopards, polar bears, and small, rabbit-like mammals called pikas. Russia’s first national parks were set up in the 19th century, but decades of unregulated pollution have taken a toll on many of the country’s wild places. Currently, about one percent of Russia’s land area is protected in preserves, known as zapovedniks. Russia’s most famous animal species is the Siberian tiger, the largest cat in the world.

Russia’s history as a democracy is short. The country’s first election, in 1917, was quickly reversed by the Bolsheviks, and it wasn’t until the 1991 election of Boris Yeltsin that democracy took hold. Russia is a federation of 86 republics, provinces, territories, and districts, all controlled by the government in Moscow. The head of state is a president elected by the people. The economy is based on a vast supply of natural resources, including oil, coal, iron ore, gold, and aluminum. The earliest human settlements in Russia arose around A.