Russia and the States of the Former Soviet Union

Chapter 5

Be able to find or identify the following on a map: Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Black Sea, Amur River, Volga River, Caspian Sea, Aral Sea, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladivostok, Kaliningrad, Kiev, Baku, Sakhalin Island, Kamchatka Peninsula

Terms, Concepts and Issues

Physical Russia

North European Plain

Continental Climate... Tundra, Taiga, and Steppes

Siberia

Caucasus Mountains

Russia's natural resources

Natural limits to Russia's success

White-Nights

The Environmental legacy of the Soviet Union 

Chernobyl

Aral Sea

History of Russia

Czarist Russia: A Rough History

Continental expansion and conflict

Russification

The Russian Revolution

The Soviet Union and its collapse

Mikhail Gorbechev...  Glasnost and Perestroika

Boris Yeltsin and Democracy in Russia

Demographics

Population decline

Migration

Culture

Orthodox return

Islam

Minorities and ethnic Russians

Politics

Authoritarian History

Democracy in Russia and the former Soviet Union

Nostalgia for the “good old days”

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev

Internal Republics and the issue of local autonomy

Chechnya

Russia’s continuing dominance

Ukraine

Georgia and Russia

Economics

Remnants of Command Economy

Infrastructure… Trans-Siberian Railroad

Heavy Industry

Capitalist Free Market Economy

Privatization

The Informal Economy

"New Russians," "Oligarchs," Mafia, and Corruption

Oil

State-owned oil companies… Gazprom

Lukoil

The Future of Russia