Backgrounder: Russia
( 2003-05-27 10:01 ) (8)

Russian Federation

President: Vladimir Putin (2000)

Prime Minister: Mikhail Kasyanov (2000)

Area: 6,592,735 sq mi (17,075,200 sq km)

Population (2003 est.): 144,526,278 (growth rate: -0.4%); birth rate: 10.1/1000; infant mortality rate: 19.5/1000; density per sq mi: 22

Capital and largest city(2000 est.): Moscow, 13,200,000 (metro. area)

Other large cities: St. Petersburg (2000 est.), 5,550,000 (metro. area); Novosibirsk, 1,418,200; Samara, 1,222,500; Chelyabinsk, 1,124,500; Yekaterinburg, 1,347,000; Nizhny Novgorod, 1,424,600; Kazan, 1,092,300; Perm, 1,086,100; Ufa, 1,091,800; Volgograd, 1,000,400

Monetary unit: Ruble

Languages: Russian, others

Ethnicity/race: Russian 81.5%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 3%, Chuvash 1.2%, Bashkir 0.9%, Byelorussian 0.8%, Moldavian 0.7%, other 8.1%

Religions: Russian Orthodox, Muslim, others

Literacy rate: 98% (1989)

Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2001 est.): $1.2 trillion; per capita $8,300. Real growth rate: 5.2%. Inflation: 21.9%. Unemployment: 8.7%, plus considerable underemployment. Arable land: 7.46%. Agriculture: grain, sugar beets, sunflower seed, vegetables, fruits; beef, milk. Labor force: 71.3 million; agriculture 10.8%, industry 27.8%, services 61.4%. Industries: complete range of mining and extractive industries producing coal, oil, gas, chemicals, and metals; all forms of machine building from rolling mills to high-performance aircraft and space vehicles; shipbuilding; road and rail transportation equipment; communications equipment; agricultural machinery, tractors, and construction equipment; electric power generating and transmitting equipment; medical and scientific instruments; consumer durables, textiles, foodstuffs, handicrafts. Natural resources: wide natural resource base including major deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, and many strategic minerals, timber; note: formidable obstacles of climate, terrain, and distance hinder exploitation of natural resources. Exports: $103.3 billion (2001 est.): petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood and wood products, metals, chemicals, and a wide variety of civilian and military manufactures. Imports: $51.7 billion (2001 est.): machinery and equipment, consumer goods, medicines, meat, grain, sugar, semifinished metal products. Major trading partners: Germany, U.S., Italy, Belarus, China, Ukraine, Netherlands, Kazakhstan.

Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 30 million (1998); mobile cellular: 2.5 million (Oct. 2000). Radio broadcast stations: AM 420, FM 447, shortwave 56 (1998). Radios: 61.5 million (1997). Television broadcast stations: 7,306 (1998). Televisions: 60.5 million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 35 (2000). Internet users: 9.2 million (2000).

Transportation: Railways: total: 87,157 km (2002). Highways: total: 952,000 km; paved: 752,000 km; unpaved: 200,000 km (1998). Waterways: 95,900 km (total routes in general use) (Jan. 1994). Ports and harbors: Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, Arkhangel'sk, Astrakhan', De-Kastri, Indigirskiy, Kaliningrad, Kandalaksha, Kazan', Khabarovsk, Kholmsk, Krasnoyarsk, Lazarev, Mago, Mezen', Moscow, Murmansk, Nakhodka, Nevel'sk, Novorossiysk, Onega, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Rostov, Shakhtersk, Saint Petersburg, Sochi, Taganrog, Tuapse, Uglegorsk, Vanino, Vladivostok, Volgograd, Vostochnyy, Vyborg. Airports: 2,743 (2001).

International disputes: 2001 Treaty of Good Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation commits Russia and China to seek peaceable unanimity over disputed alluvial islands at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers and a small island on the Argun; Russia hastens to delimit and demarcate boundary with Kazakhstan to limit illegal border activities; in 2002, Russia is the first state to submit data to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend its continental shelf by claiming two undersea ridges in the Arctic; Russia signed bilateral agreements with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan delimiting the Caspian seabed, but littoral states are far from multilateral agreement on dividing the waters and seabed regimes - Iran insists on division of Caspian Sea into five equal sectors while Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan have generally agreed upon equidistant seabed boundaries; despite recent discussions, Russia and Norway dispute their maritime limits in the Barents Sea and Russia's fishing rights beyond Svalbard's territorial limits within the Svalbard Treaty zone; Russia continues to reject signing and ratifying the joint December 1996 technical border agreement with Estonia; the Russian Duma refuses to ratify boundary treaties signed with Latvia and Lithuania; Russia and Ukraine have successfully delimited land boundary in 2001, but disagree on delimitation of maritime boundary in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea; boundary with Georgia has been largely delimited, but not demarcated; several small, strategic segments remain in dispute; islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, and Shikotan, and the Habomai group occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945, now administered by Russia, claimed by Japan.