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Russia Russia is situated in northern Asia and, west of the Urals, Europe. Russia is bordering the Arctic Ocean, between Europe and the North Pacific Ocean. The defeat of the Russian Empire in World War I led to the seizure of power by the communists and the formation of the USSR. The rule of Josef STALIN (1924-53) strengthened Russian dominance of the Soviet Union. The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985-91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into 15 independent republics. Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and market economy to replace the strict social, political, and economic controls of the communist period. Russia has a total os 19,961 km boundaries. Border countries are: Azerbaijan 284 km, Belarus 959 km, China (southeast) 3,605 km, China (south) 40 km, Estonia 294 km, Finland 1,313 km, Georgia 723 km, Kazakhstan 6,846 km, North Korea 19 km, Latvia 217 km, Lithuania (Kaliningrad Oblast) 227 km, Mongolia 3,485 km, Norway 167 km, Poland (Kaliningrad Oblast) 206 km, Ukraine 1,576 km. Additional Russia has a coastline of 37,653 km. Russia's climates ranges from steppes in the south through humid continental
in much of European Russia; sub-arctic in Siberia to tundra climate in the polar
north; winters vary from cool along Black Sea coast to frigid in Siberia;
summers vary from warm in the steppes to cool along Arctic coast.
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Pictures from this European country can be
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