After the invasion of the Mongolians, the region was ravaged, but the expansionist policies of Ivan the Terrible soon made it a powerful and feared nation. Russia prospered under the Romanov dynasty, especially under Peter the Great. The administration of Lenin and Stalin and the civil war made indelible impacts on the country’s economy. It later became the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, a republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Russia became the Russian Federation following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Opera and ballet are important parts of Russian culture. Traditional instruments include a three-stringed instrument called Balalaika, a Russian flute called Svirel and many others.

Russia stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea and the Caucasus. It is bordered by Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and North Korea. The vast landscape is made up of tundra, coniferous forest (taiga), mixed forest, broadleaf forest, grassland (steppe), and semi-desert regions.