About Russia

　　Russia is a country occupying the vast area between Europe and the North Pacific Ocean. It has an area of 10, 672,000 sq. miles (17,075,200 sq.km) and a population of almost 150 million people.

　　Occupying a large territory in Europe and Asia Russia is spread over all climatic zones except tropical. It takes over 8 hours by plane to reach from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. West of the Ural mountains from the Black Sea in the South to the Arctic Ocean lies a broad plain with low hills where the historical core of the Russian nation is located. East of the Urals from the border with Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia to the Arctic coast lies Siberia - a scarcely populated area covered by coniferous forest, swamps and tundra in the north and mountainous terrain in the south.

　　The country possesses a wide array of natural resources including major deposits of oil, coal, natural gas, many strategic minerals, diamonds and timber. The economic zone along the 23,533 mile (37,653 km) long coastline (Arctic and Pacific Oceans, Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas) holds significant reserves of fish and oil and natural gas on the sea shelf. Most of the country has a so called harsh continental climate characterized by a big difference between summer and winter temperatures (it gets indeed very cold in Siberia during winter, but it is also very hot in the summer). Russia's geographical location presents a significant obstacle to development - dry or cold climate, terrain, distance and remote location from major sea lanes, all these factors contribute to the situation when large parts of the country have almost no population and development. Russia has only 8% of arable land.

　　Russian Science and Technology

　　Russian science and technology are famous due to many achievements. On the top of the list there are: the invention of radio by A. Popov, the creation of the Periodical table of elements by D. Mendeleev, formulation of the principals of the interplanetary space flights on multistage rockets by K. Tsiolkovskiy, achievements of Russian space program lead by S. Korolev that include first unmanned space flight of "Sputnik" and first manned space flight of Yu. Gagarin, invention of laser by N. Basov and Yu. Prokhorov as well and many other discoveries.