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Russia - a BRIC country

Russia - Poccия in Russian - officially called Russian Federation (Poccийcкaя Фeдepaция), was founded following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Extending across Europe and Asia, Russia is the largest country in the world and enjoys the biggest reserves of mineral and energy resources. One of the world's largest exporters of natural gas and oil, and amongst the 4 biggest and fastest growing emerging-market countries along with Brazil, India and China, Russia is expected by many to become one of the world's leading economies by the year 2050.

Russia's capital, Moscow, is the largest economic, political, and scientific centre of the country as well as the main centre for foreign investment and business presence. Machine building, metalworking and defence represent the largest sectors of Moscow's manufacturing industry. Highest priority is currently given to precision engineering, instrument engineering, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, information technology, telecommunications, electrical engineering, energy efficient technology and materials. This megacity - the seventh largest city in the world - possesses 9 railway terminals, four international airports and the world's second busiest underground (after Tokyo).

This enormous country is host to over 160 ethnic groups and some 100 languages. 20% of Russia's population is essentially made up of Tatars, Ukrainians, Bashkir, Chuvash, Chechens and Armenians. Nevertheless Russian is the only official state language and despite its wide dispersal and the population's ethnic diversity it remains in use throughout the country.

A few facts about the Russian language:

  • Russian is written in a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet, and contains 33 letters.
  • Russian can be understood from Latvia to Serbia, in the former republics of the Soviet Union.
  • Knowledge of Russian helps understand Ukrainian and Belarusian. It also makes it easier to learn any other Slavic language, such as Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Serbian, Slovak or Slovene.
  • Modern Russian contains many English loanwords as well as lots of Italian, French and German words incorporated in the18th and 19th centuries.
  • Runglish is the Russian-English pidgin language adopted as one of NASA's on-board languages and spoken in several English-Russian communities.
  • Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Russia originally comes from Rus, named after a group of Vikings who established themselves in the area of Kiev, more commonly called " Pyccкaя зeмля" (Russkaya zemlya) "Land of Rus" by its population - this medieval state is referred to as Kievan Rus by modern historiographers. Known as Ruthenia in old Latin, its actual name Poccия (Rossiya) comes from the Greek version of Rus' "Ρωσiα" [rosia]. The name Rus may come from Ruotsi or Rootsi, respectively the Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden. Or perhaps Rusiy in reference to red hair colour? These are only two of the many disputed theories about the origin of Rus.

For more information on Russian translations, please visit our dedicated pages or contact us.

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