While the oldest endonyms were Rus' (Russian: Русь) and the Rus' land or Russian land (Russian: Русская земля), a new form of its name, Rusia or Russia, appeared in the 15th century, and became common thereafter.
Russian Empire (1721–1917)
Thereafter, the state was called, “Kievan Rus”. Mostly furs, slaves, and wax, were traded for Arabian silver, as well as Byzantine luxury goods.
The Russian Empire. Russia in the 19th century was both a multilingual and a multireligious empire. Only about half the population was at the same time Russian by language and Orthodox by religion.
The U.S.S.R. was the successor to the Russian Empire of the tsars. Following the 1917 Revolution, four socialist republics were established on the territory of the former empire: the Russian and Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republics and the Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.
During the 12th century, Ruscia gradually made way for two other Latin terms, "Russia" and "Ruthenia".
Before Russian colonization began in the late 16th century, Siberia was inhabited by a large number of small ethnic groups whose members subsisted either as hunter-gatherers or as pastoral nomads relying on domestic reindeer. The largest of these groups, however, the Sakha (Yakut), raised cattle and horses.
The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'. Genetically, the majority of Russians are identical to their East and West Slavic counterparts, unlike Northern Russians, who belong to the Northern European Baltic gene pool.
According to the traditional account presented in The Russian Primary Chronicle, it was founded by the Viking Oleg, ruler of Novgorod from about 879. In 882 he seized Smolensk and Kiev, and the latter city, owing to its strategic location on the Dnieper River, became the capital of Kievan Rus.
During the Viking Age, one of Europe's most important trade and communication routes between Scandinavia and Constantinople went through what are now the battlefields in Ukraine.
The Russians: In the early 15th century Tsardom of Russia gradually expanded, defeating various khanates in the process. Its autocracy gave it a fairly effective army. Russia also had a conflict between serfdom and frontier liberty, but its political consequences turned out to be less important.
The first known people to set foot on Russian territory were called the Cimmerians. They ruled between 1000 and 700 BCE and were followed by the Scythians in 700 BCE. The Scythian nomads established a military state and defeated the Persians, but were nonetheless conquered by the Sarmatians in 3 BCE.
The first Russian state Kievan Rus' existed for about 300 years. It was a federation of principalities, ruled by the Rurik clan.
The Russian colonization of Alaska lasted less than a century but in that time produced a rich history of enduring importance.
Historians say that the Finno-Ugric people were the first inhabitants of Russia, with many of our customs and fairytales descending from their civilization: the cult of ancestors, the love of forests and villages, our patience and communality.
The Udege, Ulchs, Evens, and Nanai (also known as Hezhen) are also indigenous peoples of Siberia, and are known to share genetic affinity to indigenous peoples of the Americas.
The term Россия (Rossija), comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Rusʹ, Ρωσσία Rossía—related to both Modern Greek: Ρως, romanized: Ros, lit. 'Rusʹ', and Ρωσία (Rosía, "Russia", pronounced [roˈsia]).
Some ancient Greek records refer to the region where Russia stands today as Hyperborea (“beyond the North wind”). Greek merchants first established outposts there between 750 and 500 BC.
Crimea in the Roman era.
On Oct. 1, 1939, Winston Churchill described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" during a radio address on the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
The final Soviet name for the constituent republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the later Soviet Constitution of 1936.
It was in 1922 that Russia was renamed as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).