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Africa Guides

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The country’s history is one of fragmentation in which its now vast geography was ruled by nomads or different tribes in the area from about 2,000 years ago, in the lower regions of the country at least, with the areas farther north largely uninhabited because of the cold.

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It was not until the time of the Varangians, who migrated from Scandinavia to present-day Russia, and the Slavs from Eastern Europe, that Russia began to be called ‘Rus’ in the 9th century. By the next century, Kievan Rus was developing into the largest state in Europe.

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Under the Tsar of Russia, the country continued to grow in size and power and was only rivalled in the 19th century by the British Empire. 1917 proved to be the big turning point in modern Russian history as the Bolshevik Revolution saw the overthrow and murder of the Russian Tsars. Vladimir Lenin was soon in power.

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After struggling to come to terms with the US and failing to modernise Russia’s economy, Brezhnev died in 1982 – a period which saw great change in the Kremlin until the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. His twin policies of political and economic opening eventually cemented his demise and that of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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