RUSSIA. Russia is the general name given to those terri tories of Europe and Asia which are comprised within the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (U.S.S.R.). The eleven republics within the Union are the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Re public, and the Ukrainian, White Russian, Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Kazak, Kirghiz, Azerbaijan, Georgian, and Armenian Socialist Soviet Republics. The first three of the above, together with the former Transcaucasian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, are original members of the U.S.S.R.; the Uzbek and Turkmen repub lics were added in 1924, and the Tajik republic in 1929; the Kazak and Kirghiz republics were admitted in 1936, when also the Trans caucasian S.F.S.R. was split into the Azerbaijan, Georgian and Armenian Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Russian S.F.S.R. includes the following:— Provinces Autonomous Areas Chelyabinsk Adigei Eastern Siberia Biro-Bijan Gorki Cherkess Ivanovo Karachayev Kalinin Khakass Kirov Oirat Kuibyshev Kursk Autonomous Republics Leningrad Bashkir Moscow Buryat-Mongol Northern Chechen-Ingushsk Omsk Chuvash Orenburg Crimea Saratov Dagestan Stalingrad German on the Volga Sverdlovsk Kabardin-Balkar Voronezh Kalmuck Western Karelia Yaroslavl Komi Regions Marii Azov-Black Sea Mordvinian Far Eastern North Osetia Krasnoyarsk Tatar Ordjonikidzev Udmurt (Votyak) Western Siberia Yakutsk The Ukrainian S.S.R. includes the Moldavian A.S.S.R., the Tajik S.S.R. includes the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Area; the Azerbaijan S.S.R. includes the Nakhichevan A.S.S.R. and the Nagorny Karabakh Autonomous Area; the Georgian S.S.R. in cludes the Abkhasian A.S.S.R., the Ajarsk A.S.S.R., and the South Osetia Autonomous Area; and Uzbek S.S.R. includes the Karakal pak A.S.S.R.
The name "Russia" (Rossiya) comes from Slavonic Rus, which possibly derived from Ruotsi (a Finnish name for the Swedes), which seems to be a corruption of the Swedish rothsmenn "row ers" or "seafarers." Extent.—The U.S.S.R. has an area of 8,336,864 sq.m. as against 8,66o,000 sq.m. occupied by the former empire of the Tsars. This diminution in territory is due to the loss of Finland, to the formation of the separate countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland from the western portions of the former Russian empire, to the cession of the Kars district to Turkey, and to the occupation of Bessarabia by Rumania, losses which followed the 1917 revolution. Russia occupies the eastern part of Europe, the Caucasus region, the whole of Northern Asia and the western part of Central Asia. Its northern boundary from the
peninsula of Rybachi eastwards is formed by the Arctic Ocean (q.v.) and its seas, the White, Barents, Kara and Nordenskiiild. The Bering Strait separates it from Alaska on the north-east, and the eastern ocean boundary includes the Bering Sea, the Okhotsk Sea and the Sea of Japan. The southernmost point of the Russian east coast is Posieta Bay, and lat. 5o° N. divides the island of Sakhalin into a northern Russian part and a southern Japanese part. On the west Russia is bounded by Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Rumania. The dispute between Russia and Rumania as to the occupation of Bessarabia is still unsettled; the present boundary between Rumania and Russia is the Dniester river, but the Russians claim that it should be the Pruth river. The northern coast of the Black Sea from the Dniester eastwards and the eastern coast as far as Makrialos are Russian. Turkey and Persia lie south of the Transcaucasian republics, and the southern part of the Caspian coast, from Astara on the west to the Atrek river on the east, is in Persian territory. To the south of Asiatic Russia lie Persia, Afghanistan, Eastern Turkestan, Mon golia, Manchuria and Korea.
The most northerly point is Cape Chelyuskin in the Siberian Area in 77° 52' N., and the most southerly Kushk Post on the Afghan frontier in 35° 3o' N., the most easterly is Cape Dezhneva in the Far Eastern Area in 169° 3' W., while in the Ukraine on the west Russia reaches 26° io' E. It is thus the largest unbroken political unit in the world and occupies more than one seventh of the land surface of the globe. The British Empire, with its scattered units, alone exceeds it in size. Russia is essentially con tinental; her greatest extent of coast line lies north of the Arctic circle, where much of the sea is icebound for ten months out of the twelve, only the port of Murmansk, under the influence of the warm Atlantic drift remaining open all the year round. On the eastern coast Vladivostok, the most southerly harbour, needs icebreakers to keep it open, while the Sea of Okhotsk is most unfavourable to navigation, owing to its dense fogs and masses of floating ice. The Caspian Sea is an inland sea ; the only outlet from the Black Sea is through the Bosporus, and the ports on the northern shore are liable to be icebound. Leningrad is now Russia's sole outlet to the Baltic, and is usually icebound from the end of November to the end of April.