COUNTRY'S DATA

SURFACE: 17.075.000 Km2. The biggest country in the world, that extends through 11 time zones between the Baltic and the Pacific. The Russian Federation consists of eight autonomic republics of Europe/Ural, eight Caucasian republics and five Siberian Republics. There are still other eleven autonomic regions. Only a third of the population lives in Siberia (Asia), where the areas are scarcely populated.

LITERACY: 98%.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Russian.

ALL THE NATIVE LANGUAGES: 101 (59 in Europe, 42 in Siberia).

IDIOMS WITH SCRIPTURES: 6 (whole Bible), 6 (New Testament), 29 (portions of the Bible).

CAPITAL: Moscow (9.000.000). Big cities: Saint Petersburg 5.035.000; Nizhny Novgorod 4.467.000; Novosibirisk 1.443.000; Yekatirinburg 1.375.000.

ECONOMY: The Russian wealth potential is enormous. The long-term effects of a centralized Marxist Economy have been devastating. The industrialization and the transformation of forms into community farms were obtained through huge efforts and cruelty. Extraordinary contradictions, inefficiency and ecological negligence are bringing about bitter consequences today. The nuclear catastrophe of Chernobyl in 1986 was possibly the collapsing fuse of the Economy and of Communism itself. The attempts of the Russian Government to release economy and reduce State properties have failed due to the resistance of a vast bureaucracy and old leadership structures threatened by imminent changes. Super Inflation and disastrous declination have been the results.

POLITICS: Russia has known only autocracy or tyranny since it became a country in the 8th century. The Czarist Empire collapsed in 1917, followed by the Bolshevist Revolution. Russia dominated the USSR since its foundation in 1922. The Communist leadership explored not only the common Russian people and the ethnic groups but also the satellite states (republics that they invaded, like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.). The resentment of the oppressed accelerated the dismemberment of USSR, since the central control in Moscow grew weak. A multiparty democracy was established in 1990, but an unsuccessful communist coup in 1991 led to the banishment of this party. The battle between the reformist democrats supported by President Yeltsin and the former leadership and the communist bureaucracy supported by the former Prime Minister Chernomyrdin, led to a blind alley in 1993, hindering the constitutional reform, delaying the economic reforms and accelerating the break-up of the central government. Some of the constituent republics are struggling for total independence from Russia.

RELIGION: During 70 years of Communism Party there has been a total elimination of "religious superstition". Atheism was promoted and all open demonstrations of any faiths were prohibited. All the religions were repressed, restricted, harassed, subverted or manipulated for the advancement of communist aims. Thousands died or were arrested because of their faith; thousands of churches were destroyed. Today, there is a certain religious freedom, however, it is controlled and monitored by the government.

ATHEISTS: 32.7%

MUSLIMS: 8.7%

BUDDHISTS: 6 %

HARE KRISHNA: 47%

JEWS: 4%

ANIMISTS: 8%

CHRISTIANS: 56.3%

• PROTESTANTS: 0.47%
• CATHOLICS: 0.48%
• ORTHODOX: 55%
• PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES TO RUSSIA: 473 in more than 40 Missions.

* Source of Information: World Intercession - WEC International.

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