Russia is the largest country in the world. It takes ten hours to cross it by plane!

A train journey from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Transsiberian Express takes six days!

Russia has 11 time zones. When people in Kaliningrad are having lunch, people in Vladivostok are going to bed!

Russia stretches from the Baltic Sea in the West to the Pacific Ocean in the East and from the Northern Arctic Ocean to the deserts of Central Asia.

Russian rivers are long. The Volga is the longest river in Europe. Russia has a wide range of scenery and climates, too. It has harsh winters with lots of snow, but the summers are quite warm. The temperature is +20° to -25° C.

Lake Baikal is 636 km long and 80 km wide. It is the world's biggest fresh water reservoir. The water is very clean. You can see the bottom of the lake through 30-40 m of water.

Mount Elbrus (18,481 ft/ 5,633 m), in the Caucasus mountain range, is the highest
peak in the country.

Steppes cover all of the south of Russia, from the Black Sea to the Altai Mountains on the Chinese border. Some of the steppes have rich black soil. Almost ten per cent of Russia is tundra. There aren't any trees there. It is frozen for most of the year. Reindeer live there.

Taiga is a thick forest with a lot of dark pine, fir, and cedar trees. Many species of wildlife live there.

Russia is on two continents- Europe and Asia. But only 20% of Russia is in Europe.

Russia has a population of 147 million people. 75% of the population live in the European part. The weather is better there.

Almost four times as many people live in cities as in villages. The 12 biggest cities have a population over 1 million mope each.

Russian people are not always a Slavic type. They do not all have blue eyes and fair hair. Russian people may look like Spaniards, Greeks, Jews, Turks, Koreans or Mongolians.

Russian people are part of a big community of more than 100 nations and ethnic groups. There are Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Chuvash, Bashkir, Belorussians and Mordvins.

Everyone in Russia speaks Russian as their national language. Local languages are very important too. Children study them at school.

There are five main religions in Russia: Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists. They live side by side all over the country.

Russian people are all different, but together they built a strong country- the Russian Federation

The Russian Flag

The Russian flag first appeared in 1668. It was the symbol of Russia for more than 300 years. It reappeared as the modern flag in 1991. The flag has three wide stripes on it. The colours of the flag are symbolic. White is faithful and sincere, blue is honest and loyal and red is brave. When Russian people celebrate their national holidays you can see the national flag in all the streets, squares, official buildings, blocks of flats and houses in big cities, small towns and villages.

The Double-Headed Eagle

The double-headed eagle is the emblem of Russia. Above the heads there are three crowns. The eagle carries a sceptre, the sign of state power, and an orb, the sign of unity. You can see St George on the breast of the eagle. It is the oldest Russian symbol of love for the
Motherland. You can also see the eagle on the back of modern Russian coins.

Moscow is an old city. Prince Yuri Dolgoruki founded it in 1147. In the early 12th century, Prince Yuri was Prince of Vladimir and Suzdal, and Prince of Kiev, too. In those days, Kiev was the capital of a сountry called Kievan Rus. Kiev was in the south and Vladimir was in the north, so it was difficult to live and rule in both towns at the same time.

Yuri lived and ruled in Kiev and his son Andrey in Vladimir. Many years passed. Prince Yuri was an old man and he decided to visit his son. He and his men set off to Vladimir. Their journey was long and difficult.

One day, when they were in a dark forest, Prince Yuri suddenly saw a large cloud. The cloud slowly turned into a huge animal with three heads. Then, it disappeared. "It's a sign!"- said Prince Yuri's adviser. "This is the place for a great city". Everyone laughed at him. A few hours later they reached a small village on the bank of the Moskva River. The ruler of the place was boyarin Stepan Kuchko. He did not open the gates and a fight began. Prince Yuri and his men won the battle. It was then that the Prince said: "This is a place for a new town. I will build it here and call it Moskva". Today, Moskva, or Moscow, is the capital of Russia and one of the most famous cities in the world.

Red Square got its name in the 17th century. In old Russian the word red means beautiful. As you can see, Red Square is very large. There are interesting landmarks in it. In the centre of Red Square, by the Kremlin wall, you can see the Lenin Mausoleum designed by the architect Alexey Victorovich Shchusev. To the left there is the Spasskaya Tower, the tallest of the Kremlin towers. It is 67.3 metres high.

The tower is famous for its clock, the Kremlin clock, made in the 16th century. The clock strikes every hour, half hour and quarter hour. The minute hand is 3.38 metres Iong.

In the square you can also visit the State History Museum and the State Department Store (GUM). The most famous building in Red Square is St Basil's Cathedral. There are eight smaller churches around the tallest ninth church.

Next to the Cathedral, there is a monument to citizen Minin and Prince Pozharsky. They were heroes in the war against Poland in 1612. It was the first monument built in Moscow.

Moscow is the capital of Russia and the largest industrial and cultural centre of the country. It is one of the oldest Russian cities. It was founded in 1147 by Yuri Dolgoruki. It was situated on the trade way from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian Sea. Moscow became the capital in the 16th century under Ivan the Terrible. In 1712 Peter the Great moved the capital to St.Peterburg. After the Great October Revolution, Moscow became the capital again.

Moscow is famous for its beautiful old cathedrals, churches and some of which date back to the 15th-17th centuries. The historical centre of Moscow is the Kremlin. It is the oldest part of Moscow. It was built as a fortress on the bank of the Moscow River. It is surrounded by a high red brick wall with twenty towers. The main tower is called Spasskaya. It is a symbol of Moscow. Many buildings inside the Kremlin were erected between the 15th and 17th centuries.

They are unique monuments of old Russian architecture, The Most famous of them are the Uspensky Cathedral, the Archangel Cathedral, the Blagoveshchensky Cathedral and the Granovitaya Palata. There are many other places of interest in Moscow, such as Red Square, St- Basil's Cathedral, the Tretyakov Gallery, the new building of Moscow University, the Luzhniki Stadium and a lot more. Some of them have a world-wide fame.

Moscow is one of the world's cultural, scientific, educational and art centres. It is the seat of the Academy of Sciences of Russia. It has eighty colleges and institutes, over a thousand schools, many museums and libraries. There are many theatres in Moscow, such as the Bolshoi Theatre, the Vakhtangov Theatre, the Moscow Art Theatre and a lot of others.

Children start school when they are 6 or 7. They go to school for eleven years. The years are divided into primary (4 years) secondary (5 years) and senior (2 years).

The academic year begins on 1st September and finishes on 31st May. June is when the 9th and 11th forms take their exams. The academic year is broken into terms or quarters with three breaks. The summer holiday starts on 1st June and lasts for three months.

The school day normally starts at 8:30 a.m. and finishes at 3 p.m. There are some variations from school to school. Schools in big cities often have two shifts, as their buildings are not big enough to accommodate all the students at the same time. The school week is five or six days long. Young students have three to four lessons a day while older ones may have up to seven lessons.

The main school subjects are: Russian, Literature, Mathematics and History. Russian is a compulsory subject, but ethnic minorities have the right to teach in their own languages. English is the most popular foreign language studied in school. Other languages taught are German, French and Spanish.

Class size is usually 20 to 30 students. Primary teachers teach all subjects while subject specialists teach secondary and senior classes. Students are graded from 2 (unsatisfactory) to 5 (excellent). On rare occasions the mark 1 is given as a punishment. If a student has unsatisfactory results at the end of the year, they will be held back and asked to repeat the year.

Some Russian state schools specialise in a group of subjects,e.g. Maths & Physics, Biology & Chemistry (There are also vocational schools where children are trained for their future jobs (ballet dancers, musicians etc.) and have general education lessons alongside their training. Nowadays more and more schools use modem communications and media technologies as part of the courses.

Last but not least is the subject of fees.Until the 1990s all schools were run by the state and were free of charge. Now, however some of them are private and charge fees.