Caspian SeaThe Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia, south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe, and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau of West Asia. It covers a surface area of (excluding the highly saline lagoon of Garabogazköl to its east), an area approximately equal to that of Japan, with a volume of .
Kievan Rus'Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus' ( , or ро́усьскаѧ землѧ́ ; Garðaríki), was a state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including East Slavic, Norse, and Finnic, it was ruled by the Rurik dynasty, founded by the Varangian prince Rurik. The modern nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestor, with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it.
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991; see below), is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of roughly 5.6 million residents as of 2021. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.
SwedenSweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridgetunnel across the Öresund. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic country, the third-largest country in the European Union, and the fifth-largest country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Stockholm. Sweden has a total population of 10.
Lake LadogaLake Ladoga ('laed@g@; Ladozhskoye ozero, ˈladəʂskəjə ˈozjɪrə or Ladoga, ˈladəɡə; Laatokka [earlier in Finnish Nevajärvi]; Luadogu; Ladog, Ladoganjärv) is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia, in the vicinity of Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake located entirely in Europe, the second largest lake after Baikal in Russia, and the 14th largest freshwater lake by area in the world. It is comparable in size to Lake Ontario.
DanubeThe Danube (ˈdæn.juːb ; ) is the second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through much of Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest into the Black Sea. A large and historically important river, it was once a frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects ten European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , passing through or bordering Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine.
Volga BulgariaVolga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia. Volga Bulgaria was a multi-ethnic state with large numbers of Bulgars, Volga Finns, Varangians and many East Slavs. Its strategic position allowed it to create a local trade monopoly with Norse, Cumans, and Pannonian Avars. The origin of the early Bulgars is still unclear.
Rus' peopleThe Rus' (Роусь; Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian: Русь; Old Norse: Garðar; Greek: Ῥῶς, Rhos) were a people in early medieval eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD. In the 9th century, they formed the state of Kievan Rusʹ, where the ruling Norsemen along with local Finnic tribes gradually assimilated into the East Slavic population, with Old East Slavic becoming the common spoken language.
Sea of AzovThe Sea of Azov (Crimean Tatar: Azaq deñizi; Azovskoye more; Azovs'ke more) is an inland shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Kerch, and is sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Russia on the east, and by Ukraine on the northwest and southwest, currently under Russian occupation. It is an important access route for Central Asia, from the Caspian Sea via the Volga-Don Canal.
HunsThe Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns' arrival to Europe is associated with the migration westward of an Iranian people, the Alans. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, and by 430, they had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and many other Germanic peoples living outside of Roman borders and causing many others to flee into Roman territory.
Tatar languageTatar (ˈtɑːtəɹ; татар теле, tatar tele or татарча, tatarça) is a Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan (European Russia), as well as Siberia. It should not be confused with Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar, which are closely related but belong to different subgroups of the Kipchak languages. The Tatar language is spoken in Russia by about 5.3 million people, Azerbaijan, China, Finland, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, the US, Uzbekistan, and several other countries.
HungariansHungarians, also known as Magyars (ˈmæɡjɑːrz ; magyarok ˈmɒɟɒrok), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary (Magyarország) and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic language family. There are an estimated 14.5 million ethnic Hungarians and their descendants worldwide, of whom 9.6 million live in today's Hungary.
Proto-Indo-European languageProto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age.
East SlavsThe East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs. They speak the East Slavic languages, and formed the majority of the population of the medieval state Kievan Rus', which they claim as their cultural ancestor. Today, the East Slavs consist of Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians. Rus' people and Ruthenians Researchers know relatively little about the Eastern Slavs prior to approximately 859 AD when the first events recorded in the Primary Chronicle occurred.
Nicholas II of RussiaNicholas II (Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; 1868 - 17 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles.
RussiaRussia (Rossiya, rɐˈsjijə), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, its vast landmass stretching over the easternmost part of Europe and the northernmost part of Asia. Russia extends across eleven time zones and shares land boundaries with fourteen countries. It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. The country's capital and largest city is Moscow.
