Russia

Where the name comes from

Russia means “land of the Rus”, a name often linked to Norse words for rowing. The Rus were traders and warriors from today’s Sweden who mixed with Slavic and Finnic peoples along eastern Europe’s rivers in the 800s; their realm, centred on Kyiv, covered parts of today’s Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and was distinct from the modern Russian state.

First people

Slavic, Finnic, Turkic and many Siberian peoples lived across these plains and forests, and the Rus realm of the 800s grew among them.^1,2

Known for

Russia is the world’s largest country, spanning 11 time zones, and is known for its ballet and writers such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.³

Outside contact

Mongol armies conquered the Rus principalities in the 1230s and 1240s, and Moscow rose by collecting tribute for the Golden Horde.⁴

The modern country

Conquest beyond Moscow brought the Volga region and Siberia under its rulers, and fur traders pushed east to the Pacific; the empire fell in 1917, and today’s Russian Federation emerged when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.^5,6