BP3 QTR4 General Information

Name: Russia or Russian Federation
Nationality: Russian, falls under "Eastern European"
Languages: Russian, along with over 100 minority languages with no % values for each available.

Flag: no official reasons for the colors, might have been inspired by dutch.
Background: The former soviet union, this now-capitalist country is still sore with the US and not to friendly with China, either.  This country has gone over huge changes (see following article on the Russian revolution for an example) over the last century.  The economy is OK, but copyrights laws could be better, and they remain a large exporter a oil and natural gas.  The Ural mountains contain many valuable resources.  There is a lot of poppy smuggling and they and China disagree on island territories.  They are not as powerful or influential as the US, and have made a lot of enemies, but for now it seems that they are doing fine, aside from 13.6% of the population being under the poverty line.

Sources:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html
https://team8l.wikispaces.com/Model%20UN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia







Follow-up article: A brief Summary of the Russian Revolution and a few events that occurred afterwards.

One hundred years ago, Tsars ruled over all of russia.  They were like kings and popes rolled into one. Then, in 1905, there was unrest. Terrorist attacks, military mutinies, you name it.  They finnally established a constitution in 1906. But the peace did not last. Tweleve years later, the first revolution began.  It was in Febuary, and was centered around what is now St. Petersburg.  In the havoc, the imperial parliment took control, forming the Russian Provisial Goverment.  The army leadeship felt that they could not supress the revoulution, and with Nicholas II abdicated, the RPG came to power.  This also happened during WWI leaving russia in a pretty shabby military condition.  Lots of mutinies.  Then there was a period of Dual power, where the RPG covered the upper classes, while socialists led the lower-class.  This was a chaotic period in which mutinies and strikes were too common for comfort.  This lower-class group, called the Bolshieviks, were against the war, but the RPG wanted to keep fighting.  So the Bolshieviks formed the red guards, which would later be know as the red army.  These militas had substancial control.  In the October revoultion, the Bolshievik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' soviets, overthrew the russians in St.petersburg.  The Bolshieviks made themselves leaders of many goverment ministries and siezed control of the countryside.  They also formed Cheka ( Russian secret sevice ) to mantian security.  In the end, they finished WWI by signing the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the germans in March 1918.