Russia
A country so wide that its sunrise takes its time. When breakfast is being served in Moscow, the far eastern port of Vladivostok is already halfway through its working day. Russia sprawls across two continents and eleven time zones, a place of birch forests, frozen rivers and stories written on an enormous scale.
- Region
- Eastern Europe and Northern Asia
- Capital
- Moscow
- Major language
- Russian
- Quiz questions
- 80 across three rounds
What is Russia?
Its full name is the Russian Federation, born in 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved. It is the largest country on Earth by land area, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, with roughly 145 million people and the ruble as its currency. The Ural Mountains mark the informal line between its European and Asian halves.
Modern Russia is a federal republic rich in oil, gas, minerals and timber, and it carries the weight of a dramatic history — tsars, revolution, world war and superpower rivalry. It remains a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the legal successor state to the Soviet Union, including its space program and its archives.
Endless forests, deep ice and a sacred lake
Siberia is the heart of the country's geography: a vast expanse of taiga forest, marshy tundra and rivers that freeze solid for months. Winter here is not a season but a personality, with temperatures in the northeast dropping to levels that make steel brittle and breath freeze in midair.
The prize of the landscape is Lake Baikal in Siberia, the deepest and oldest freshwater lake on the planet, holding roughly a fifth of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water. Add the volcanoes of Kamchatka, the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus peaks, and the scale of Russian scenery becomes almost impossible to take in at a glance.
From Viking traders to the Soviet century
The state's earliest roots lie in Kievan Rus, a medieval trading power that adopted Orthodox Christianity. Centuries of Mongol rule followed, then the rise of Moscow, the formidable tsars — Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, who built a window to Europe at St. Petersburg, and Catherine the Great, who expanded the empire hugely.
The twentieth century arrived with revolution in 1917, the execution of the imperial family and the birth of the Soviet Union. The Soviet people bore the brunt of the Second World War, then competed in the Cold War and launched the space age with Sputnik in 1957 and Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, in 1961. The Atlas questions trace the full sweep from medieval Rus to the federation today.
Novels, ballets and a long winter's table
Russian culture has a gift for seriousness done beautifully. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky wrote novels that wrestle with the whole of human nature; Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky filled concert halls; and the Bolshoi ballet turned dance into spectacle. Russian chess players also dominated the board for most of a century.
The table is built for winter: borscht, dumplings, sour cream, rye bread, caviar and, of course, vodka. Tea simmers in a samovar, wooden cottages are decorated with carved frames, and the colorful domes of St. Basil's Cathedral still surprise visitors on Red Square. The Russian love of poetry, long conversations and icy New Year celebrations completes the picture.
Russia in the Atlas quiz
Eighty questions wait in three rounds. First Steps is a gentle ten-question warm-up; Finding Your Way stretches to twenty; Well Versed offers thirty that roam from the first tsars to the Mir space station. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess leaves you with a story worth keeping.
Pass a round with enough correct answers and Russia changes color on your learning map, saved right in your browser. Replay any round whenever you like.