Between the 3rd and 6th centuries, the south of Russia was under regular attack by various groups from the east of Europe and Asia. By the end of the 7th century, Russian soil was occupied by an array of ethnic groups including the Finno-Ugric people, who were living mostly in the area north of St Petersburg. The Turkic Khazars were perhaps the most civilised of peoples to settle an area of Russian territory, occupying the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea during the 8th century when they established trade links with some of parts of the fast-developing Islamic world. However, its decline came in the 12th century as the Orient became the more popular trade route with the empires of the day. Nevertheless Kievan Rus, which had adopted Christianity, would prove to be the blueprint for Russian culture as we know it today. Moscow soon became the centre of the Russian universe, known from the middle of the 14th to the 16th centuries as the Grand Duchy of Moscow. This period up to the 18th century saw Russia expand more than any country in the history of the world, reaching from Eastern Europe to the Pacific Ocean. After Lenin’s death in 1922, Russia then saw Joseph Stalin reign for more than 30 years, a period in which Russia was victorious in WWII while experiencing great social upheaval as millions were uprooted, relocated and put in labour camps. In 1953, Stalin’s death saw the USSR relax some of its harsher policies under Nikita Khrushchev but the country was entering a period that would eventually result in its break-up – the Cold War. By 1964, after miscalculations in dealing with the US, Khrushchev was ousted and Leonid Brezhnev brought in. Communism in Russia had slowly reached its inevitable death and the country began to sell off its state-run enterprises and adopt a capitalist model, a process which has largely been completed up to today. | 
