Russia Travel Guide
Key Facts
Area:
17,075,400 sq km (6,592,849 sq miles).
Population:
142.5 million (2014).
Population density:
8.3 per sq km.
Capital:
Moscow.
Government:
Federal republic.
Head of state:
President Vladimir Putin since 2012.
Head of government:
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev since 2012.
Electricity:
220 volts AC, 50Hz. Russia uses a standard European plug with two round pins.
Russia is at once breathtaking and baffling. Winston Churchill’s much-quoted line that the world’s largest nation represented “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” is as true today as it was back then.
Monumental in every respect, it’s a land where burnished imperial splendour coexists with icy Siberian tundra, where timeworn Soviet-era monuments backdrop uber-hip urban cultures and where everything from the ruling party downwards functions in its own, impenetrably Russian, way.