Russia is well ahead of most other resource-rich countries in its economic development, with a long tradition of education, science, and industry. In January-June 2007 foreign investment in the Russian economy doubled year-on-year, reaching $60.3 billion.

The network of railways in Russia probably provides the most extensive form of transportation throughout the country.

On March 6, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was ratified.

Since 2003, exports of natural resources started decreasing in economic importance as the internal market has strengthened considerably, largely stimulated by intense construction, as well as consumption of increasingly diverse goods and services.

The population decline might accelerate in the coming years; if current rates persist, Russia's population has been projected to fall by a quarter to a third by 2050. In an effort to stem Russia’s demographic crisis, starting 1 January 2007 the government doubled monthly child support payments and offered a one-time payment of 250,000 Rubles (around US$10,000) to women who had a second child.

Russian cuisine foundations were laid by the peasant food of the rural population in an often harsh climate, with a combination of plentiful fish, poultry, game, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provided the ingredients for a plethora of breads, pancakes, cereals, kvass, beer, and vodka. Flavourful soups and stews centred on seasonal or storable produce, fish, and meats.

After the fall of the Khazars in the 10th century, the middle Volga came to be dominated by the mercantile state of Volga Bulgaria, the last vestige of Greater Bulgaria centered at Phanagoria. In the 10th century the Turkic population of Volga Bulgaria converted to Islam, which facilitated its trade with the Middle East and Central Asia. In the wake of the Mongol invasions of the 1230s, Volga Bulgaria was absorbed by the Golden Horde and its population evolved into the modern Chuvashes and Kazan Tatars.

When the national Constituent Assembly, elected in December 1917 and meeting in January 1918, refused to become a rubber-stamp of the Bolsheviks, it was dissolved by Lenin's troops. With the dissolution of the constituent assembly, all vestiges of bourgeois democracy were removed. With the handicap of the moderate opposition removed, Lenin was able to free his regime from the war problem by the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) with Germany, in which Russia lost the territories of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, the parts of the territories of Latvia and Belarus (line Riga-Dvinsk-Druia-Drisvyaty-Mikhalishki-Dzevalishki-Dokudova-r.Neman-r.Yelvyanka-Pruzhany-Vidoml), and the territories captured from the Ottoman Empire during World War I. On November, 13, 1918 the Soviet government cancelled the Treaty of Brest.