The territory which is Russia was first settled by ethnic groups such as
Slavs, Turks, and Bulgars in the third century. From the seventh to the
sixteenth century Russia proved very susceptible to attacks from its
neighbours. Vikings came from the north, Bulgarians and Turks from the
south; Mongols and Tatars invaded from the east, Poles and Lithuanians from
the west. As the Kremlin fortress in Moscow became the centre of political
power in the fifteenth century the Russians began to take land from their
aggressors. The Tatars were pushed out by the likes of Ivan II 'the Great'
and Ivan IV 'the Terrible' as Russia expanded her borders. Expansion to the
south and west continued during the reigns of Peter the Great (1682-1725),
Catherine the Great (1762-1796), and Alexander I (1801-1825); and St
Petersburg became the imperial capital. The monarchy survived until the
February Revolution of 1917 which resulted in the abdication of Tsar
Nicholas II. The provisional government which was established only lasted a
matter of months before it too fell. The October Revolution of 1917 saw the
Communist Bolsheviks seize power under their leader Lenin. There ensued five
years of civil war between the 'red' Bolshevik revolutionaries and the
'white' monarchists and counter-revolutionary forces. In 1922 the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established, comprising of the four
Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, and Transcaucasia. After
Lenin's death in 1924 Stalin emerged as leader of the Communist Party and
thus the country. He abolished the notion of private ownership and
nationalised all industry, bringing it under the auspices of the State;
collective farming was also introduced. Political opponents were
systematically eliminated through a series of show trials and purges. The
Second World War allowed the USSR to make territorial gains and to further
its sphere of influence to the newly-liberated nations of eastern Europe.
The regimes of Khrushev and Brezhnev were less severe than Stalin's but the
State still exerted a stranglehold over most affairs. But the situation
changed dramatically once Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Communist
Party in 1985. He introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and
perestroika (restructuring); these were aimed at stimulating the economy and
making healthier social conditions. However, this more liberal regime led to
a rise in ethnic tension and nationalism within the various republics. The
Soviet Union as was ceased to exist once the leaders of the individual
republics, such as Russia's Boris Yeltsin, gained greater power and declared
independence. On 25 December 1991 Gorbachev resigned and the next day the
USSR was no more. Russia has large oil, gas, and coal reserves and extremely
rich  mineral deposits. Russian Orthodoxy and Islam are main religions;
Russian is the official language but many other languages are spoken because
of the great ethnicity resulting from the country's huge size.