Country Research Questions

1.  Although Russia is supposedly a democracy, it remains semi-authoritarian post-communism, and allegations of political assissinations, and media supression plagued the Putin government.  It is unclear to what extent this will continue into the new administration under current president Dmitri Medvedev government.

2.  After the fall of communism, Russia converted from a centralized economy to a capitalist economic model.  However remmnants of communism remain, as much of large industry is in the hands of "Oligarchs" who control vast portions of the economic wealth of the country.  As with the communist system, there exists to this day a vast disparity between  the rich and the poor.

3.  As has long been traditional in Russia, men and women play an almost equal role in the family.  There is exists a class structure in Russia, with an incredibly huge gap between the incredibly impovrished, and oligarch billionaires.

4.  The most common religion in Russia, is Russian Orthodox Christianity (70%).  The only other religion with significant numbers is Islam which accounts for somewhere between 6 and 11% of the population.

5.  Ethnic Russians comprise 79.8% of the population while the rest is made up of various local ethnicies such as Tatar and Ukrainian.  Russia has had some problems due to ethnic Russians living in former Soviet territories which are now independent countries.

6.  Russia maintained for 72 years the worlds largest communist economic system, however followed by the breakup of the USSR it converted into the Russia Federation, which it is today.  During the Soviet period, Russia was involved in a series of proxy wars with the US, collectively known as the Cold War.  In addition to this, both countries garnered huge nuclear stock piles which they maintain to this day.  Since the dissolving of the USSR, US-Russia relations have become increasingly friendly, however there is still strong tensions between the two countries.

7.  The major issues in Russia today are the lack of democracy, the failings of their newly created capitalist economy, and decreasing oil prices.  The USSR has had great difficulty converting to a capitalist economy as well as a democratic system of government.  This has resulted in a huge disparity of wealth, and allegations of corruption against the supposedly democratic Russian government.

8.  Russia is a member of the UN, as well as the G12.

9.  Militarily, Russia is one of the strongest nations on the planet especially in terms of nuclear capacity.  Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons of any country, with over 5,000 nuclear weapons.  This high number is due to the stockpiling that occurred during the Cold War.  Recently, current president Medvedev signed an agreement with President Obama to limit and decrease both countries nuclear stockpiles.