LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Russian Federation: Soviet Union
built 266 days ago
The Russian Federation is the most economically developed area of the former USSR; during the Soviet period it was responsible for about 70% of all its agricultural and industrial production. Russia is extremely rich in mineral resources. Oil and gas fields are found in both the S European region and in W Siberia. The Urals have deposits of copper, manganese, asbestos, platinum, and tungsten. Coal is mined in the Pechora Basin in Europe and the Kuznetsk Basin in Siberia. Other mineral reserves include iron, bauxite, zinc, and lead.
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The Russian Federation inherited a Marxist-Leninist command economy from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Chief among the characteristics of the economy was an almost total absence of private productive capital. All enterprises were owned by the state, with each person receiving a salary for his or her efforts. Farmland was ... almost entirely state-owned: 95% of all farmland was either state-owned or collectivized. All economic planning was done by government officials based in Moscow. Market forces played no part in their decision-making.
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Since its birth as an independent nation, following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation has had a tumultuous history. Steps toward economic liberalization, undertaken during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, led to massive inflation and a deterioration in the standard of living for average Russians. Though the economy began to grow in the late 1990s, a quarter of Russians live below the subsistence level.
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The Russian Federation was established in 1991, when the USSR disintegrated and the former RSFSR became an independent state. A declaration of state sovereignty was adopted on June 12, 1991 (now a national holiday), and official independence from the USSR was established on August 24,1991. The Russian Federation replaced the USSR as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The term Russia has been applied loosely to the Russian Empire until 1917, to the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from 1917 to 1991, to the Russian Federation since 1991, or even (incorrectly) to mean the whole of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The term has ... been used to designate the area inhabited by the Russian people, as distinguished from other Eastern Slavs and from non-Slavic peoples.
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The Russian Federation (Russia) is recognised in international law as continuing the legal personality of the former Soviet Union (USSR) which was dissolved on 31 December 1991. The Russian Federation is currently divided into 85 administrative units known as 'federal subjects'. This includes 21 republics linked to non-Russian minorities, 8 territories, 47 regions, 7 autonomous regions, and the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. However, a programme of referenda in various federal subjects means that some are set to merge over the next few years.
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Almost 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation is still far from the democracy many hoped it would become. Since coming into office in 1996, president Vladimir Putin has consolidated executive power, eliminating the election of regional governors, squashing freedom of press, harassing human rights defenders, and continually abusing civilians in the guise of a war on terror in the North Caucasus. In addition, the harsh economic and social transition has given rise to increasing domestic violence and racial hate crimes. Speaking in Washington, D.C. in October 2005, Moscow Helsinki Group founder Liudmilla Alexeevna warned that she hoped there would be no "color" revolution in Russia soon, because it would more likely be brown than orange.
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