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Ambassador of Russian Federation in
Sri Lanka
His Excellency Vladimir P.Mikhaylov |
Message from His Excellency
Vladimir P.Mikhaylov,
Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Sri
Lanka
Dear
Sri Lankan friends!
It
gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you �
representatives of every community, faith,
profession and age, citizens of friendly state.
Today
the Russian Federation celebrates its National Day.
During many centuries of its history the Russian
nation passed various stages: from ancient clan
community to feudal and then bourgeois state, great
empire, three revolutions, civil war, totalitarian
regime and Soviet style society.
By the
late 1980s, people had begun to doubt the Communist
Party ability to carry out meaningful socioeconomic
reforms. So-called "Perestroyka" (Transformation)
was started. The idea to adopt the Declaration on
the State Sovereignty was born in the Democratic
Russia movement, in which proponents of evolutionary
market reform and strong statehood based on Russia's
national interests started opposing the Communist
monopoly on power.
On June
12, 1990 the Parliament of the Russian Federation
voted for the Declaration on the State Sovereignty,
paving the way for the development towards modern
democratic and free market system based on the
respect for human rights and freedoms, command of
the law, constitutional federalism and national
sovereignty.
Since
that time the Russian Federation achieved
significant success in consolidating its economy,
perfecting political and governance system,
strengthening defence capability, developing
culture, science and sports. Thanks to that its
international influence grew up and nowadays it
plays active and valuable role in the world arena.
Russia
is a strong advocate of a stable system of
international relations based on the principles of
equality, mutual respect and mutually beneficial
cooperation as well as the norms of international
law. Such a system aims at ensuring reliable and
equal security for every member of the international
community in the political, military, economic,
information, humanitarian and other areas and
employs multilateral diplomacy as its main tool.
Russia
views fighting international terrorism as one of its
most important tasks and calls for elaboration of
further measures aimed at consolidation of the
global anti-terrorism coalition under the UN aegis
with the participation of regional organizations
without resorting to double standards and on the
basis of universal anti-terrorism conventions and
decisions of the UN Security Council.
Dear
friends, I am especially glad today that we
celebrate the Russia Day in Sri Lanka liberated from
terrorism. This victory has been achieved by Sri
Lanka people under the leadership of their President
and government, by sacrifices of their armed forces.
But it would have been more difficult without
international support. And I am proud that Russia
was actively engaged in this support to the
legitimate democratically elected government in its
struggle against terrorism. The Russian Embassy in
Colombo did its best in providing Moscow with
objective information on the developments in Sri
Lanka. Russia welcomed Sri Lanka government forces
restoring control over the entire territory of the
country and freeing civilians. It was said in the
Statement of the Russian MFA that "Moscow wishes the
government and people of friendly Sri Lanka success
in rapidly overcoming the consequences of the
conflict and in achieving economic and social
progress based on consensus among and respect for
the rights of all the ethnic and religious groups
inhabiting it. Russia reiterates its readiness to
strengthen further its cooperation with Sri Lanka
both in a bilateral format and in regional and
international organizations on counterterrorism and
on other themes of mutual concern".
Later
President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev
in the telephone conversation with President Mahinda
Rajapaksa expressed his hope that actions by the
government of Sri Lanka would help maintain its
sovereignty, guarantee its territorial integrity,
put an end to extremism and contribute to the
sustainable socio-economic development of the
nation. The two leaders noted the close cooperation
between Russia and Sri Lanka in international
affairs and reiterated their readiness to cooperate
more fully, discussed a plan to extend Russian-Sri
Lankan contacts at various levels. President
Rajapaksa thanked the Russian President for the
considerable assistance given to Sri Lanka in the
fight to eradicate terrorism from the country. He
also expressed his gratitude to President Medvedev
for the support that Russia had extended to Sri
Lanka in the UN Security Council, where attempts
were made to obstruct the humanitarian operation to
free the Tamil civilian hostages from the LTTE, and
also for the support given to Sri Lanka at the UN
Human Rights Council. It is only natural that
gratitude for this support has been expressed also
by political parties, public organizations and many
rank-and-file people.
I have
no doubt that with peace to prevail in Sri Lanka
traditional friendly relations between our two
nations will develop even more successfully: more
Russian tourists will come to this beautiful island,
more joint economic projects will be started, more
young people from Sri Lanka will study in Russian
universities, more cultural, sports and humanitarian
contacts will take place. And be sure that the
Russian Embassy in Sri Lanka will be doing its best
in this regard.
Finally, I would like to convey my
heartfelt thanks to all those who have sent
congratulations for the Russian National Day and
expressed warm feelings towards my country.
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Map of Russia |
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Facts &
Figures
OFFICIAL NAME: Russian Federation
Land area: 6,592,812 sq mi (17,075,400 sq km); total area: 6,592,735 sq
mi (17,075,200 sq km)
Population (2007 est.): 141,377,752 (growth rate: �0.5%);
Birth rate: 10.9/1000; infant mortality rate: 11.1/1000; life
expectancy: 65.9; density per sq mi: 21
Capital and largest city (2003 est.): Moscow,
10,672,000 (metro. area), 10,101,500 (city proper)
Other large cities: St. Petersburg, 4,582,300; Novosibirsk, 1,395,500;
Nizhny Novgorod, 1,340,900; Yekaterinburg, 1,256,600; Samara, 1,146,800; Kazan,
1,113,600; Ufa, 1,096,600; Chelyabinsk, 1,080,000; Perm, 998,800; Volgograd,
984,200
Monetary unit: Russian ruble (RUR)
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History
Although human experience on the territory
of present-day Russia dates back to
Paleolithic times, the first lineal
predecessor of the modern Russian state was
founded in 862. The political entity known
as Kievan Rus was established in Kiev in 962
and lasted until the 12th century. In the
10th century, Christianity became the state
religion under Vladimir, who adopted Greek
Orthodox rites. Consequently, Byzantine
culture predominated, as is evident in much
of Russia's architectural, musical, and
artistic heritage. Over the next centuries,
various invaders assaulted the Kievan state
and, finally, Mongols under Batu Khan
destroyed the main population centers except
for Novgorod and Pskov in the 13th century
and prevailed over the region until 1480.
Some historians believe that the Mongol
period had a lasting impact on Russian
political culture.
In the post-Mongol period, Muscovy gradually
became the dominant principality and was
able, through diplomacy and conquest, to
establish suzerainty over European Russia.
Ivan III (1462-1505) referred to his empire
as "the Third Rome" and considered it heir
to the Byzantine tradition. Ivan IV (the
Terrible) (1530-1584) was the first Russian
ruler to call himself tsar. He pushed
Russian eastward with his conquests but his
later reign was marked by the cruelty that
earned him his familiar epithet. He was
succeeded by Boris Godunov, whose reign
commenced the so-called Time of Troubles.
Relative stability was achieved when Michael
Romanov established the dynasty that bore
his name in 1613.
During the reign of Peter the Great
(1689-1725), modernization and European
influences spread in Russia. Peter created
Western-style military forces, subordinated
the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy to the
tsar, reformed the entire governmental
structure, and established the beginnings of
a Western-style education system. He moved
the capital westward from Moscow to St.
Petersburg, his newly-established city on
the Baltic. His introduction of European
customs generated nationalistic resentments
in society and spawned the philosophical
rivalry between "Westernizers" and
nationalistic "Slavophiles" that remains a
key dynamic of current Russian social and
political thought.
Catherine the Great continued Peter's
expansionist policies and established Russia
as a European power. During her reign
(1762-96), power was centralized in the
monarchy, and administrative reforms
concentrated great wealth and privilege in
the hands of the Russian nobility. Catherine
was also known as an enthusiastic patron of
art, literature and education and for her
correspondence with Voltaire and other
Enlightenment figures. Catherine also
engaged in a territorial resettlement of
Jews into what became known as "The Pale of
Settlement," where great numbers of Jews
were concentrated and later subject to
vicious attacks known as pogroms.
Alexander I (1801-1825) began his reign as a
reformer, but after defeating Napoleon's
1812 attempt to conquer Russia, he became
much more conservative and rolled back many
of his early reforms. During this era,
Russia gained control of Georgia and much of
the Caucasus. Throughout the 19th
century, the Russian Government sought to
suppress repeated attempts at reform and
attempts at liberation by various national
movements, particularly under the reign of
Nicholas I (1825-1855). Its economy failed
to compete with those of Western countries.
Russian cities were growing without an
industrial base to generate employment,
although emancipation of the serfs in 1861
foreshadowed urbanization and rapid
industrialization late in the century. At
the same time, Russia expanded into the rest
of the Caucasus, Central Asia and across
Siberia. The port of Vladivostok was opened
on the Pacific coast in 1860. The
Trans-Siberian Railroad opened vast
frontiers to development late in the
century. In the 19th century, Russian
culture flourished as Russian artists made
significant contributions to world
literature, visual arts, dance, and music.
The names of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol,
Repin, and Tchaikovsky became known to the
world.
Alexander II (1855-1881), a relatively
liberal tsar, emancipated the serfs. His
1881 assassination, however, prompted the
reactionary rule of Alexander III
(1881-1894). At the turn of the century,
imperial decline became evident. Russia was
defeated in the unpopular Russo-Japanese war
in 1905. The Russian Revolution of 1905
forced Tsar Nicholas II (1894-1917) to grant
a constitution and introduce limited
democratic reforms. The government
suppressed opposition and manipulated
popular anger into anti-Semitic pogroms.
Attempts at economic change, such as land
reform, were incomplete. |
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PEOPLE
Russia�s 141.9 million citizens descend from
more than 100 ethnic groups. Russian is the
official language of Russia and is one of
the six official languages of the United
Nations. Russian is also the language of
such giants of world literature as Pushkin,
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pasternak and
Solzhenitsyn.
Russia's educational system has produced
nearly 100% literacy. About 7 million
students attended Russia's 1,090
institutions of higher education in 2006,
but continued reform is critical to
producing students with skills to adapt to a
market economy. Because great emphasis is
placed on science and technology in
education, Russian medical, mathematical,
scientific, and space and aviation research
is still generally of a high order. The
number of doctors in relation to the
population is high by American standards,
although medical care in Russia, even in
major cities, is generally far below Western
standards. The unraveling of the Soviet
state in its last decades and the physical
and psychological traumas of transition
during the 1990s resulted in a steady
decline in the health of the Russian people.
Currently Russia faces a demographic crisis
as births lag far behind deaths. While its
population is aging, skyrocketing deaths of
working-age males due to cardiovascular
disease is a major cause of Russia's
demographic woes. A rapid increase in
HIV/AIDS infections and tuberculosis
compounds the problem. In 2007, life
expectancy at birth was 61.4 for men and
73.9 for women. The large annual excess of
deaths over births is expected to cut
Russia's population by 30% over the next 50
years.
The Russian labor force is undergoing
tremendous changes. Although well educated
and skilled, it is largely mismatched to the
rapidly changing needs of the Russian
economy. Official unemployment dropped to
its lowest rate of 5.4% in May 2008, and
labor shortages appeared in some
high-skilled job markets. The economic
crisis which began in late 2008, however,
quickly reversed this trend and the ranks of
unemployed swelled to an International Labor
Organization (ILO) estimated 9.5% in the
first quarter of 2009; 1.8 million Russian
lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2009
alone. Unemployment is highest among women
and young people. Following the 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union and the
economic dislocation it engendered, the
standard of living fell dramatically.
However, real disposable incomes have
doubled since 1999, and experts estimate
that the middle class constitutes
approximately one-fourth of the population.
The economic crisis, however, caused real
disposable incomes to drop by 6.7%
year-on-year in January 2009, and wages fell
by 9.1% year-on-year in January 2009. Unpaid
wages as a share of total enterprise
turnover tripled to 0.12% in December 2008
compared to August 2008. The stock of wage
arrears reached 8.7 billion rubles in April
2009, but still was not at levels seen in
the 1990s. A World Bank study notes that
poverty fell by 8.5% or 12.5 million people
between 2002 and 2006, based on a poverty
line of 1,056 rubles per capita per day in
2003. However, data collected between
January and September 2008 indicates 13.5%
of the population, approximately 19 million
people, continue to live below the
subsistence minimum of 4,630 rubles per
month. About 25% of the population is highly
vulnerable to poverty, as vulnerability to
low levels of income remains high and a
large number of people are concentrated
around the poverty line, according to the
World Bank.
Moscow is Russia's capital and largest city.
Moscow is also increasingly important as an
economic and business center; it has become
Russia's principal magnet for foreign
investment and business presence. Its
cultural tradition is rich, and there are
many museums devoted to art, literature,
music, dance, history, and science, as well
as hundreds of churches and dozens of
notable cathedrals.
The second-largest city in Russia is St.
Petersburg, which was established by Peter
the Great in 1703 to be the capital of the
Russian Empire as part of his
Western-looking reforms. The city was called
Petrograd during World War I and Leningrad
after 1924. In 1991, as the result of a city
referendum, it was renamed St. Petersburg.
Under the tsars, the city was Russia's
cultural, intellectual, commercial,
financial, and industrial center. After
Lenin moved the capital back to Moscow in
1918, the city's political significance
declined, but it remained a cultural,
scientific, and military-industrial center.
The Hermitage, formerly the Winter Palace of
the tsars, is one of the world's great fine
arts museums.
Russia has an area of about 17 million
square kilometers (6.5 million sq. mi.); in
geographic terms, this makes Russia the
largest country in the world by more than
2.5 million square miles. But with a
population density of about 22 persons per
square mile (9 per sq. km.), it is sparsely
populated, and most of its residents live in
urban areas.
(Sources:
Russian Federation in Sri Lanka / Internet)
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Russia - The Land of Ballet, Literary Greats, and
Palaces
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is the largest
country in the world and is so vast that it has
eleven time zones and a coastline of more than
23,000 miles. Known mostly for its natural
resources, Russia has more than 100,000 rivers, and
the world�s largest forest, and largest lake (Lake
Baikal). Russian is the predominant language, but
more than 100 languages are spoken throughout the
country.
Russia is famous for the Bolshoi Ballet, dancers
such Rudolf Nureyev and Anna Pavlova, classical
music composers Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and
literary masers such as Tolstoy, Pushkin, and
Dostoevsky. Russia is also known for its fine vodka
and caviar. Moscow is the capital and largest city
in Russia, followed by St. Petersburg and
Novosibirsk. |
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People
Nationality: Noun and adjective--Russian(s).
Population (January 2009): 141.9 million.
Annual growth rate (2009 est.): -0.467% (population
declining).
Ethnic groups: Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian
2%, other 14.4%.
Religion: Russian Orthodox, Islam, Judaism,
Roman Catholicism, Protestant, Buddhist, other.
Language: Russian (official); more than 140
other languages and dialects.
Education (total pop.): Literacy--99.4%.
Health: Life expectancy (2007 est.)--67.5
average; 61.4 yrs. men, 73.9 yrs. women.
Work force (90.152 million, 2007 est.):
Production and economic services--84%;
government--16%. |
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Government
Type: Federation.
Independence: August 24, 1991.
Constitution: December 12, 1993.
Branches: Executive--president, prime
minister (chairman of the government).
Legislative--Federal Assembly (Federation Council,
State Duma). Judicial--Constitutional Court, Supreme
Court, Supreme Court of Arbitration, Office of
Procurator General.
Political parties: After a shakeup in late 2008
dissolved and combined several parties, seven
registered parties remain: United Russia, the
Communist Party (KPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party
(LDPR), Just Russia, Yabloko, Patriots of Russia,
and the new Right Cause party. Yabloko, which favors
liberal reforms, and Patriots of Russia failed to
clear the 7% threshold in 2007 to enter the Duma.
Subdivisions: 21 autonomous republics, 47
oblasts, 2 federal cities (Moscow and St.
Petersburg) and 14 autonomous territories and
regions.
Suffrage: Universal at 18 years.
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