Zdrástvuti

In other words…Hello! The country of the month for January is Russia. What an exciting country and culture to get to know! Don’t you think?

Catherine the Great

First off you have their interesting history from Mongol invasions to the great Tsar and dynasties and all the opulence that comes with such a government. But the people felt deprived causing the revolution and the formation of the Soviet Union and Communism. Now that communism has fallen Russia is a Federation with a President and Prime Minister.

Joseph Stalin

Perhaps you have heard of some of Russia’s famous rulers. Peter the Great conquered the land and built the beautiful capital called St. Petersburg. Catherine the Great also conquered much land expanding the country further. The Romanov dynasty ruled the longest in Russia. Their power came to and end when Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in 1917 allowing Marxist Vladimir Ilich Lenin to take power. The U.S.S.R was formed creating the Soviet government of communism. Another famous leader was Joseph Stalin who began a reign of terror causing starvation and death.

Siberian tiger

Russia is a vast country that covers almost twice the area of the United States. It has many different climates including an arctic tundra and Taiga evergreen forest. In fact the Taiga is the largest evergreen forest in the world. This is where the beautiful Siberian tiger can be found as well as elk, bears, muskrats, and wolves.

Cyrillic alphabet

There are five main languages in Russia: Slavic, Altaic, Uralic, Caucasus and Paleosiberian. The Russian language is part of the Slavic branch and is the country’s official language. The Russian alphabet is different than our English alphabet. It is called the Cyrillic alphabet and was named after St. Cyril a Greek monk who brought written language to the Christian converts who lived in Russia during the ninth century. The Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Greek alphabet with 12 additional letter that represent Slavic sounds not found in Greek.

That’s it for now. Next week I will write about Russian cities, culture and food. YUMMY!