Originally, the name Rus' (Cyrillic: Русь) referred to the people, regions, and medieval states (9th to 12th centuries) of the Kievan Rus'. Its territories are today distributed among Belarus, Northern Ukraine, Eastern Poland, and the European section of Russia.
Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Russia is a land of superlatives.
The first Russian state Kievan Rus' existed for about 300 years. It was a federation of principalities, ruled by the Rurik clan. The development of feudal relations and the strengthening of the independence of separate cities resulted in political fragmentation of Kievan Rus'.
Thereafter, the state was called, “Kievan Rus”. Mostly furs, slaves, and wax, were traded for Arabian silver, as well as Byzantine luxury goods.
During the 12th century, Ruscia gradually made way for two other Latin terms, "Russia" and "Ruthenia".
During the ninth and tenth centuries, a massive state grew to dominate much of Eastern Europe. Ancestors to Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, the Kievan Rus were a combination of Slavic and Viking influences.
The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'. Genetically, the majority of Russians are identical to their East and West Slavic counterparts, unlike Northern Russians, who belong to the Northern European Baltic gene pool.
Historians say that the Finno-Ugric people were the first inhabitants of Russia, with many of our customs and fairytales descending from their civilization: the cult of ancestors, the love of forests and villages, our patience and communality.
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic renamed itself as the Russian Federation and became the primary successor state to the Soviet Union.
Veliky Novgorod – the Birthplace of Russian Statehood
Veliky Novgorod was the first to introduce Russia to running a republican state, and its historical example has always attracted the supporters of democratic development in our country. A visit to the Rurik's Gorodishche (Settlement) is not to be missed.
By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history.
In 1991, the USSR collapsed into 15 new countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. These became independent states, and many further became the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The Russian Federation (Russia) is physically the largest country in the world, covering 6.6 million square miles and 11 time zones over its 6,000-mile length.
Bush recognized all 12 independent republics and established diplomatic relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
The first known people to set foot on Russian territory were called the Cimmerians. They ruled between 1000 and 700 BCE and were followed by the Scythians in 700 BCE. The Scythian nomads established a military state and defeated the Persians, but were nonetheless conquered by the Sarmatians in 3 BCE.
Southern Siberia was part of the Mongols' khanate of the Golden Horde from the 10th to the mid-15th century.
There are 47 indigenous groups living in Russia, some of them with populations of less than a hundred or even a few dozen. The 2021 All-Russian Population Census showed that the number of indigenous people has substantially declined in the last 10 years.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the term “White Russian” described ethnic Russians living in the area between Russia and Poland (today this includes Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Moldova).
The Slavs' original homeland is still a matter of debate due to a lack of historical records; however, scholars believe that it was in Eastern Europe, with Polesia being the most commonly accepted location.
Eastern Europe and Finland
Per Haak et al. (2015), the Yamnaya contribution in the modern populations of Eastern Europe ranges from 46.8% among Russians to 42.8% in Ukrainians. Finland has one of the highest Yamnaya contributions in all of Europe (50.4%).
While both Ukrainians and Russians consider themselves Orthodox Slavs, Rurik, the founding father of the Kievan Rus' dynasty, which goes back to the 9th Century, was a pagan Viking.
Ukraine and Russia go back to Kievan Rus, a medieval Viking federation that ruled first from Novgorod to the north, and then from Kyiv. Its territory included what is now Ukraine, Belarus and part of Russia. Kievan Rus meant “the land of the Rus”. The word “Russia” derives from Rus.
These agreements were then confirmed and consolidated at the Potsdam Conference. Thereafter, eastern Poland was annexed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.