• Total aid: $1.26bn (receipts)

Russia has received billions of dollars in aid from Western countries on several occasions to stave off government debt and to promote economic restructuring. Large-scale IMF credits were obtained during the economic crises of the mid- and late 1990s.

The first Russian state (Rus) was in present-day Ukraine. Occupation by the Tatars (1240–1480) marked the Russian language and character. From the 17th century, the Romanovs ruled an expanding empire.

• 1904–1905 Russian war against Japan; ends in defeat for Russia.
• 1905 "Bloody Sunday" revolution.
• 1909–1914 Rapid economic expansion.
• 1914 Enters World War I against Germany.
• 1917 February Revolution; abdication of Nicholas II. October Revolution; Bolsheviks take over with Lenin as leader.
• 1918 Nicholas II and family shot.
• 1918–1920 Civil war.
• 1921 New Economic Policy; retreat from socialism.
• 1922 USSR established.
• 1924 Lenin dies. Leadership struggle eventually won by Stalin.
• 1928 First Five-Year Plan: forced industrialization and collectivization.
• 1936–1938 Show trials and campaigns against actual and suspected members of opposition. Millions sent to gulags in Siberia and elsewhere. Purges widespread.
• 1939 Hitler–Stalin pact gives USSR Baltic states, eastern Poland, and Bessarabia (Moldova).
• 1941 Germany attacks USSR.
• 1943 February, tide of war turns with lifting of siege of Stalingrad.
• 1944–1945 Soviet offensive penetrates Balkans.
• 1945 Germany defeated. Under Yalta and Potsdam agreements eastern and southeastern Europe are Soviet zone of influence.
• 1947 Cold War begins; Stalin on defensive and fears penetration of Western capitalist values.
• 1953 Stalin dies.
• 1956 Hungarian uprising crushed. Krushchev's "secret speech" attacking Stalin at party congress.
• 1957 Krushchev consolidates power. Sputnik launched.
• 1961 Yuri Gagarin first man in space.
• 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
• 1964 Krushchev ousted in coup, replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
• 1975 Helsinki Final Act; confirms European frontiers as at end of World War II. Soviets agree human rights are concern of international community.
• 1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan. New intensification of Cold War.
• 1982 Brezhnev dies.
• 1985 Gorbachev in power. Start of perestroika, "restructuring." First of three US–USSR summits, resulting in arms reduction treaties. Nationality conflicts surface.
• 1988 Law of State Enterprises gives more power to enterprises; inflation and dislocation of economy.
• 1990 Gorbachev becomes Soviet president. First partly freely elected parliament (Supreme Soviet) meets.
• 1991 Boris Yeltsin elected president of Russia. Yeltsin and Muscovites resist hard-line communist coup. Gorbachev sidelined. CIS established; demise of USSR.
• 1992 Economic shock therapy.
• 1993 Yeltsin decrees dissolution of Supreme Soviet and uses force to disband parliament. Elections return conservative State Duma.
• 1994 First Russian military offensive against Chechnya.
• 1995 Communists win elections.
• 1996 Yeltsin reelected despite strong Communist challenge. Peace accord in Chechnya.
• 1998 Economic turmoil forces devaluation of rouble. Severe recession, rampant inflation.
• 1998–1999 Yeltsin repeatedly changes prime minister in successive political crises.
• 1999 Yeltsin resigns; Prime Minister Putin is acting president.
• 1999–2000 Terrorist violence blamed on Islamic separatists in Dagestan and Chechnya. Military offensive against Chechnya; fall of Grozny.
• 2000 Putin elected president. Attack on "oligarchs" in big business. Improvement in economy. Kursk nuclear submarine disaster.
• 2001 Party mergers: Putin's Unity party largest grouping in parliament. Russian–Chinese friendship treaty.
• 2002 May, Cam Ranh Bay base in Vietnam, last Russian outpost beyond former USSR, closed. October, Moscow theater hostage crisis: Chechen separatists and 128 hostages killed during rescue.
• 2003 Pro-Putin UR wins elections.
• 2004 Putin reelected. Militants seize hostages in Beslan school: hundreds killed, mainly children.

Weather chart

Russia has a cold continental climate, characterized by two widely divergent main seasons. Spring and autumn are very brief periods of transition between warm summers and freezing winters. The country is open to the influences of the Arctic and Atlantic to the north and west. Mountains to the south and east, however, prevent any warming effects from the Indian and Pacific Oceans filtering across. Severe winters affect most regions. Winter temperatures vary surprisingly little from north to south, but fall sharply in eastern regions. The January temperature of –70°C (–94°F) recorded at Verkhoyansk in Siberia is the world record low outside Antarctica.