Russian Empire

The Russian Empire (Российская Империя) was the largest contiguous country in modern times, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union and present-day Russia. Reaching its maximum size during the mid-19th century, it included much of east and central Europe (including Finland and Poland), all of Siberia, much of Central Asia, briefly Alaska and even Fort Ross as far south as present-day California, though the degree of actual control by the tsarist authorities usually declined quite notably going from west to east. It also had a few concessions in China. Throughout world history, only the Mongol Empire and the British Empire have possessed a larger land area than Imperial Russia.

Though two world wars and Soviet iconoclasm destroyed parts of the Russian imperial heritage, there are still many sites and artifacts left to see.

Understand
"Товарищ, верь: взойдет она, Звезда пленительного счастья, Россия вспрянет ото сна, И на обломках самовластья Напишут наши имена!

Comrade, believe: it will arise, the star of captivating happiness; Russia will spring from slumber and on the shards of autocracy They will write our names!"

- To Chaadaev by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, 1818

While the Russian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1721, it was preceded by Russian kingdoms dating back as early as the 9th century.

The Rurikids
In the 8th and 9th century Viking explorers and traders started to navigate on the mighty Russian rivers to reach the Arab Muslim and Byzantine Greek Empires around the Mediterranean. When travelling through Russia, the Vikings came into contact – and conflict – with local Slavic tribes. Legend has it that these "...drove the Varangians (Vikings) back beyond the sea, refused to pay them tribute, and set out to govern themselves", only to find themselves deteriorating into fragmentation and strife. To solve their disunity they invited one Viking chieftain, Rurik, back to rule them. Rurik founded the first Russian dynasty in 862, setting up court in Staraya Ladoga but later moving to Novgorod. His successor Oleg of Novgorod expanded the kingdom southward, and moved the capital to Kiev after conquering it, giving the realm its name Kievan Rus. The modern countries of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus all claim their origins in Kievan Rus, and this continues to be a major bone of contention between Russia and Ukraine, with Ukrainians often accusing Russians of appropriating their history.

By the end of the first millennium, European paganism was going out of style due to Christianization. To find a new, more modern religion for his realm, Rurik’s great-grandson Vladimir the Great, also known as St. Vladimir of Kiev, invited representatives of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity to plead their case and convince him to adopt their faith. Vladimir was initially attracted to Islam. However, he decided against it when he learned about the Muslim taboo against drinking alcohol and eating pork with the words "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure." He next considered Judaism. He rejected it however, taking the destruction of Jerusalem and subsequent diaspora as evidence that the Jews had been abandoned by their god. To decide the matter, Vladimir sent envoys to investigate the different religions. His emissaries argued that the Muslim Volga Bulgars lacked joy, and found the Catholic Germans much too gloomy. However, of Constantinople's Greek Orthodox cathedral Hagia Sophia, they said "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth". This decided the matter, and in 988 Vladimir was baptized into Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Chersonesus, before returning to Kiev and baptizing his people in the Dnieper River; this event is today known as "the Baptism of Rus'". As a consequence, Russia was introduced to the Christian and Byzantine Greek cultural sphere, which has heavily influenced the country since.

During the following century, Rus' prospered from trade with its newfound Byzantine ally, reaching its golden age in the 11th century under the rule of Yaroslav the Wise, who compiled the first ever set of codified laws for the realm. However, in the 12th century, the realm fragmented into a dozen different more or less independent principalities. This made Russia an easy target during the Mongol invasion of the 1220s.

During the next 250 years, the Russian principalities suffered under "the Tatar yoke" becoming tribute-paying vassals of the Khans, specifically the Golden Horde. The most successful of these princedoms was Moscow, which adopted the role of emissaries and tribute collectors of the Mongols. Using this position, it was able to expand its influence at the expense of the other Russian principalities. By the 1480s, Moscow had grown strong enough to challenge and break free from its Mongol overlords under the leadership of Dmitry Donskoy.

Moscow's main competition for influence in the region was Novgorod, which remained independent due to its position in northwestern Russia, forming a merchant republic similar to that of the German Hanseatic League. In the 13th century the Novgorodian ruler Alexander Nevsky fought German and Swedish invaders, becoming a symbol of Russian independence for centuries to come. In 1478 the Novgorod Republic was conquered by Moscow, which set the stage for Russian absolutism for centuries to come. In 1453 Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and centre of Orthodox Christianity, fell into the hands of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. This left Russia the strongest Orthodox country in the world. The Muscovite princes consequently thought of themselves as inheriting the Byzantine Emperors' role as protectors of the true faith, thus proclaiming Moscow as "the third Rome" and its rulers as "Tsars of all Rus'" (both the Russian title Tsar or Czar and the German one Kaiser derive from the Roman Imperial title Caesar). The Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III "the Great" even married Sophia Palaiologina, niece of the last Byzantine Emperor, to reinforce his claim.

As the absolute ruler of Russia, the first tsar, Ivan IV "the Terrible" (Ива́н Гро́зный​ Ivan Grozny, lit. Ivan Thunder, fig. the "Fearsome" or Ivan the "Formidable") and his secret police Oprichnina started a reign of terror. In a fit of rage, Ivan even killed his own son and heir. The death of Ivan's other, childless, son Feodor in 1598 marked the end of the 700-year reign of Rurikid dynasty. Without any heir apparent Russia was plunged into chaos, with civil war and foreign invasions, a period later known as "the Time of Troubles". The era ended when the Patriarch of Moscow crowned his own son Mikhail Romanov tsar in 1613.

The Romanovs
By 1700 Russia was still a peripheral country in European politics. The country was technologically backward and economically underdeveloped. With Archangelsk on the White Sea as its only port, Russia was isolated from western Europe, whose people considered it more barbaric than civilized. The man who was going to change that was the extraordinary tsar Peter I, better known as Peter the Great, who built the first Russian navy. The Swedish Empire had expanded eastwards during the 16th and 17th century, nearly encircling the Baltic Sea. As Russia allied with Poland and Denmark in 1699 to contain Sweden, the Great Northern War began. Swedish king Charles XII led a campaign far into the Russian steppes, until he was defeated at Poltava in 1709, allowing Russia to annex the Baltic States. Peter's ambitions did however not stop at the military field. In an effort to modernize his country, he embarked on a year-long tour of Europe to learn advanced knowledge, and subsequently launched a program later known as the Petrine Reforms. The reforms ranged from administration to finance to fashion, as he even demanded that the Russian nobles cut their long beards to adopt the Western European hair style. He also more or less reduced the church of Russia to a branch of his own government, to sway any opposition to his reforms. His most awesome achievement was however the construction of a new capital on the freshly conquered mouth of river Neva into the Baltic Sea – Saint Petersburg. The city was constructed according to western European architectural ideas and was intended to become Russia's "Window to the West", a gateway for western European ideas to get into Russia, and for Russia to get into the world. Russia was now established as a great power, and to emphasize his new Western European image Peter rejected the old title "Tsardom of all Rus'", for the more western European name "The Russian Empire", Российская империя.

While the leaders of Russia looked to the west, economic opportunists and adventurers looked to the east. Siberia was a vast land filled with natural resources — most notably prized furs. However, the intense hunt drastically reduced the number of game, motivating the adventurers to move eastward onto greener pastures. And where the hunters and adventurers went, colonists followed. Thus, step by step, Russia conquered and colonized Siberia and the Russian Far East, beginning in the late 16th century and reaching the Pacific Ocean in 1639, decimating most of their native populations in the process. The Danish-born Russian naval commander Vitus Bering claimed Kamchatka for the empire in 1728, and in 1741 reached Alaska but died on the return trip. Alaska would be sold to to the United States in 1867.

Peter's successors continued his policies of military expansion and cultural modernization. Russia also became, and remains, a patron of the arts, especially classical music and art, rivaling other European empires, such as the Austrian Empire and France. Catherine the Great in particular promoted the Russian intelligentsia, a new class of Western European-educated intellectuals. Still, most of the population remained poor and unlanded, and serfdom persisted until 1861. Under Catherine the Great, Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in several wars, resulting in Russian Empire's borders being expanded westwards into Crimea, Belarus, Central Ukraine and Lithuania. The victory over the former in particular cemented Russia's status as one of Europe's great powers. In the early years of the 19th century, Russia became involved in the Napoleonic Wars, which in Russian historiography is known as "The First Great Patriotic War" (followed by the second 130 years later). In 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia, and managed to capture and burn the ancient Russian metropolis of Moscow. However, the French troops were poorly prepared for the Russian winter, and the cold in combination with Russian guerrilla raids completely annihilated Napoleon's Grande Armée. As one of the victorious allies against Napoleon, Russia consolidated its role as a European great power, and in the following peace treaty of Vienna, Russia was granted Finland from Sweden, while Poland was split among Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary.

The French revolution of 1789, the Napoleonic wars, and the failed liberal Decembrist revolt of 1825 reminded the Russian rulers that the liberal ideas of west Europe could also be very dangerous for their monarchy. The Russian rulers thus turned to a more reactionary direction, and thereby came into conflict with the enlightenment ideals and much of the intelligentsia. At the same time the intelligentsia itself became divided between the Zapadniki (lit. "westernizers"), and the Slavophiles. The Zapadniki thought that Russia was still uncivilized and medieval compared to western Europe, and argued for further modernization. The Slavophiles, on the other hand, considered the enlightenment ideals of west Europe superficial and materialistic, and rather wanted to cherish Russia's "unique" Orthodox and spiritual heritage. Due to strict government censorship, much of this cultural debate was expressed in literature, contributing to a golden era for Russian literature.

In the wake of the Second Opium War, Russia was able to force Qing China to sign the Treaty of Aigun in 1858, which resulted in all Chinese territory north of the Amur River being ceded to Russia. After the French and British victory over China in 1860, at the Convention of Peking, the Chinese were forced to cede all territory east of the Ussury River to Russia, resulting in direct Chinese access to the Pacific Ocean being cut off in the northeast, ethnic cleansing of Chinese people from the ceded territories, and the founding of Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Nakhodka. Subsequently, Russia also successfully forced the Chinese to grant them several concessions — areas in which Russian citizens enjoyed extraterritorial rights, and where Chinese law did not apply. The first of these were in Hankou and Harbin in 1896, Dalian in 1898, and Tianjin in 1900. To this day, the cities of Harbin and Dalian are known for having a high concentration of Russian architecture, with Harbin also known among the Chinese for its Russian food.

In 1861 Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia. However, as most land was still owned by the nobility, and as the serfs were obliged to compensate their previous owners with usury taxes for the little land they were allotted, the reforms left most serfs as wage- or debt-slaves, liberating them more in name than in fact. Disillusioned and disappointed with the reform, many Zapadniki were radicalized into Nihilists, abandoning rational debate for political violence. In response, the regime became increasingly repressive, and many Slavophiles turned to the more imperialist ideology of Pan-Slavism.

Russia had the ambition to acquire an ice-free port on either the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, or the Indian Oceans. It competed with the British Empire in The Great Game, annexing most of Central Asia except Afghanistan, which remained independent as a buffer zone between the two empires. It also defeated the Persian Empire in a series of wars in the early 19th century, gaining control over the Caucasus. Russian expansion became a concern for its rivals, and in the 1850s Crimean War, an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France and the United Kingdom prevented Russia from dominating the Black Sea. Another setback was the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905, the first decisive non-Western victory over a Western great power since the Voyages of Columbus. It resulted in the loss of the southern half of Sakhalin island, and the Russian colonial possession in the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan.

The Russian Revolutions and World War I
The defeat at the hands of Japan contributed to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which delegated much of the emperor’s power to the State Duma, a newly founded parliament.

In 1914, Slavic separatists assassinated Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to an Austro-Hungarian ultimatum against Serbia. As Russia backed its Serbian "brothers" (Pan-Slavic ideas being common at the time), Germany honored its alliance with Austria, leading to a destructive conflict today known as World War I. Though German troops pushed far into Russian territory, and the Russian people were driven towards famine, the Tsar was too stubborn to stop fighting. Rising dissent led to the February Revolution in 1917, in which the constitutional monarchy was replaced by a short-lived Provisional Government. However it, too, continued to fight in World War I and was in turn overthrown in the October Revolution in the same year, which brought the Bolshevik government, led by Vladimir Lenin, to power and laid the foundation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar and his family would be imprisoned and eventually executed by the Bolsheviks in February 1918. They were subsequently buried in unmarked graves, which were only re-discovered in 1979 and 2007 respectively. Also called the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Soviet Union became a global superpower within a couple of decades and remained one until its dissolution in 1991.

For history after the fall of the empire, see Soviet Union, World War II in Europe and Cold War Europe. For information on the countries which now occupy the empire's former territory, see Russia, Caucasus, Central Asia, Belarus, Ukraine, Finland, Poland and the Baltic states.

Destinations
While most historical cities are in Central and Northwestern Russia, as well as Ukraine, Russia expanded eastward during the Age of Discovery, with most settlements in Siberia (including the Russian Far East) rather young in comparison to European Russia.

Many old Russian cities have a kremlin (кремль), essentially a castle or fortress, small or large, some better preserved than others. The largest and by far the most famous one is the one in Moscow that is the seat of the modern Russian government, internationally known as the Kremlin, a term that is also a metonym for the Russian (and formerly Soviet) government.

Russia

 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
 * Trans-Siberian Railway - running from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific, the world's longest railway uniting Russia and one of the most impressive construction projects in the world. It was finished in 1916, just before the collapse of the Russian Empire.