Prominent
North-South trending Ural Mountain range that extends from Arctic Ocean
to Kazakhstan and divides Russia into two parts
he nation's history began with that of the East Slavs, who emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD.Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire,beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium.[Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde in the 13th centuryThe Grand Duchy of Moscow
gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved
independence from the Golden Horde, and came to dominate the cultural
and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland on the west to Alaska on the eas
