Mountains in the south obstructing the flow of warm air masses from the Indian Ocean and the plain of the west and north makes Russia open to Arctic and Atlantic influences. As a result, much of the territory there are only two distinct seasons—winter and summer; Spring and autumn are usually brief periods of change between extremely low temperatures and extremely high.

By 2006, Russia had the ninth highest GDP of all the countries of the world, and forecasters believe that the income will only grow.

The Red Guard - which was formed by groups of armed soldiers and workers directed by the Bolshevik Party – seized control of Petrograd (Saint Petersburg).

Yeltsin set in motion the wheels of a free election and a hearing of the voice of the people.

Railways are the most expansive of the three.

While in the industrialized nations of the West, motion pictures had first been accepted as a form of cheap recreation and leisure for the working class, Russian filmmaking came to prominence following the 1917 revolution when it explored editing as the primary mode of cinematic expression. Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention in the period immediately following the 1917 revolution, resulting in world-renowned films such as Battleship Potemkin.

While some progress has been made on the economic front, and Russia's management of its windfall oil wealth has improved its financial standing.

By the middle of 1915 the impact of the war was demoralizing. Food and fuel were in short supply, casualties kept occurring, and inflation was mounting. Strikes increased among low-paid factory workers, and the peasants, who wanted land reforms, were restless. Meanwhile, public distrust of the regime was deepened by reports that a semiliterate mystic, Grigory Rasputin, had great political influence within the government. His assassination in late 1916 ended the scandal but did not restore the autocracy's lost prestige.