Global - Technology - Review

Russia, the world’s largest country, is a land of extremes. Covering no less than nine time zones, from the Baltic and the Black Sea to the Pacific, it encompasses forest, tundra, steppe, desert and mountain ranges. Its epic history is a turbulent tale of autocratic monarchs and dictators, invasions, civil war and revolution. Nevertheless, Russian culture has given the world musicians like Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky, and writers like Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Moscow, the capital, contains massive monuments of the Soviet era, including the spectacular Metro, but perhaps more impressive is the architecture of an earlier age: the mighty fortress of the Kremlin, now the seat of government, the multicoloured onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, and the Bolshoi Theatre, home of classical ballet. St Petersburg is, in contrast, an elegant European city which, with its canals, is known as the Venice of the North. Here are Tsarist relics like the sumptuous Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum. Russian food and drink like Stroganoff, Chicken Kiev and Vodka need no introduction. One of the greatest Russian achievements of the twentieth century took place in 1961 when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.