Russian Federation
Rossiyskaya Federatsiya
CAPITAL: Moscow
FLAG: Equal horizontal bands of white (top), blue, and red.
ANTHEM: Patriotic Song.
MONETARY UNIT: The rouble (R) is a paper currency of 100 kopecks. There are coins of 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 50 kopecks and 1 rouble, and notes of 100, 200, 500, 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 50,000 roubles. R1 = $0.0322 (or $1 = R31.10) as of May 2003.
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: The metric system is the legal standard.
HOLIDAYS: New Year's Day, 1–2 January; Christmas, 7 January; Women's Day, 8 March; Spring and Labor Day, 1–2 May; Victory Day, 9 May; State Sovereignty Day, 12 June; Socialist Revolution Day, 7 November.
TIME: 3 PM Moscow = noon GMT.
The topography of Russia features a broad plain with low hills west of the Ural Mountains with vast coniferous forests and tundra in Siberia. There are uplands and mountains along the southern border region. Despite its size, only a small percentage of Russia's land is arable, with much of it too far north for cultivation.
The most recent estimates indicate that 81.5% of the population is Russian. Tatars constitute 3.8%; Ukrainians make up 3%; Chuvash form 1.2%; Bashkir account for 0.9%; Belarussian for0.8%; Moldavian for 0.7%; and a wide variety of other peoples are represented in the remaining 8.1%.
The Russian Federation has no territories or dependencies.