This book contains selections of texts for the students studying history in English and for those interested in Russia and its past. The first: part: of the book is a collection of texts for general survey of Russia. They are covering a wide range of knowledge of Russia and featuring many different aspects of the contemporary Russia as a country and a state: the historic background of Russia, the basic facts about the Russian language (its geographic distribution, official status, languages in the USSR, Russian alphabet), the state structure and the state power of the Russian Federation, geography, resources of the country, the economy of Russian Federation after 1991, a detailed description of national origins, linguistic groups, and ethnic composition of Russia's population, religions in Russia and changes in the religious structure of the country. The title of the second part is "Russia before the Russians: prehistory and protohistory of the Non-Slavic peoples of Russia". The term...