25 Interesting Facts about Russia

Want to know more about Russia? Here are 25 Interesting Facts about Russia that you probably didn’t know before reading this!

To make this even more fun, I want to challenge you as well. How many of these Russia facts did you know before reading this? Share your result in the comment section!

Russia has the world’s longest railway

You have probably heard of the Trans-Siberian Railway that goes all the way from Moscow to Vladivostok, but did you know that it is also the world’s longest single railway line?

It covers a distance of 9,289 kilometers (5,772 miles), and also has connecting branches in Mongolia, and China, which basically means that you can go by train all the way from Moscow to Beijing!

Photo: Shutterstock

Folk dancing is a big tradition

There are so many traditional folk dances in Russia, and even though they used to be more important, the Russian dances are still a big part of the Russian culture and its traditions.

Khorovod, Karelian, Tatar, and Chechotka are some of the most famous traditional Russian dances.

Photo: Shutterstock

Siberia makes up 77% of the land area

However, only 20% of the total population lives in Siberia, which means that a lot of it is uninhabited.

Photo: Shutterstock

Russia has a national sex day

A Russian Holiday, known as Day of Conception or Procreation Day. It takes place each year the 12th of September and was made popular by the region Ulyanovsk (the birthplace of Lenin).

The day is meant for Russian workers to take a day off in order to make babies, and it’s working quite well because every June, the birthrate is higher than in other months.

There are 12 active volcanoes

People often refer to Russia as a cold country with harsh winters, and while that is true in many ways, there are still 12 active volcanoes!

Klyuchevskaya Sopka (pictured below) has had more than 50 major eruptions in the last 270 years!

Photo: Shutterstock

6. An average Russian drinks more than 18 liters of alcohol per year

Alright, some of the more common Russian stereotypes include alcohol, and while a lot of them don’t drink excessively, a Russian person drinks on average around 18 liters of alcohol per year.

This is more than double the amount that doctors deem as safe drinking.

Russia has over 8400 nuclear weapons

The USA is often thought of as the main superpower when it comes to nuclear weapons, but the Russian army has the most number of nuclear weapons, about 8400, which is more than any other country in the world.

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Russia is the largest country by area

The total area of Russia is 17,125,191 km2 (6,612,073 sq mi), which is more than 1.5 times larger than the whole European continent.

In fact, the country’s total area covers 1/7 of the world!

9 million passengers ride Metro in Moscow each day

With a little more than 12 million people living in the Russian capital, almost 3/4 of the city’s population use the metro daily. That’s about 9 million passengers a day.

The Moscow Metro is also considered to be the most beautiful metro in the world, and the metro stations are truly elegant, although crowded during rush hour.

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A Russian was the first person in space

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first cosmonaut in space. He made a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft.

In addition to sending the first person into outer space, the Soviet Union also launched the world’s first satellite in 1957, known as Sputnik.

The Soviet Union played the biggest role in defeating Hitler in WWII

The Allies of World War II is often mentioned as the winners of World War II, even though it was a global catastrophe. However, it was the Soviet Union who sacrificed the most with more than 20 million soldiers losing their lives in battle.

Some sources even claim that up to 30 million Russians were killed in the war. The Soviet Union also got a lot of their land destroyed, whereas the US was relatively unaffected on their own soil.

If Hitler hadn’t attacked the Soviet Union, the outcome of the war would perhaps be very different, and if it weren’t for the Red Army and their soldiers, the war against the Nazis would’ve been much tougher to win.

Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million

If you adjust this according to inflation, the US bought Alaska for $118 million in today’s value.

Probably one of the facts about Russia that the Russian government regrets. To give more perspective on how much 118 million US Dollar is worth, Real Madrid just sold their football player Christiano Ronaldo for a similar amount (€100 million) to Juventus.

The total area of Alaska is 1 718 000 km².

Home to the coldest inhabited place on Earth

The Russian town of Oymyakon is considered to be the coldest inhabited place on our entire planet.

The coldest temperature measured was -77.8°C (-108°F) back in 1938.

Photo: Tatiana Gasich / Shutterstock.com

The literature is world-famous

Leo Tolstoy, Fjodor Dostojevskij, Aleksandr Pushkin, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Nabokov, and Anton Chekhov are some of the most famous Russian authors, and their works have become famous worldwide.

Some of the most famous Russian books include War and Peace, Eugene Onegin, The Cherry Orchard, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and many more!

There are 11 million more women than men

There are more Russian women than men, and estimates says that there are about 11 million women in the country.

This is partly because many soldiers who were men died in battle during World War II. In 1950, there were just 76.6 men per 100 women.

Another reason for the gap is because of lower life expectancy for males. Russian women live more than 10 years longer on average than their male counterpart.

Photo: Shutterstock

5 x Fun Facts about Russia

Beer was not considered an alcoholic beverage in Russia until 2013
The dialing code for Russia is 007
A Russian woman holds the world record of giving birth, to 69 children
Wealthy Moscovites have bought ambulances to get by the traffic jams in Moscow
Russians drink six times more tea per year than Americans

Photo: Shutterstock

5 x Russia Facts for Kids

Moscow is the most populated city in Europe
There are polar bears living in the Arctic part of the country
It has borders with 14 other countries, more than any other country
Russians use the Cyrillic alphabet instead of the Latin alphabet
Hockey and Football are the two most popular sports

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General Facts about Russia

Below are some general info such as total population, land area, biggest lake, highest mountain and other general facts about Russia that might be interesting to know.

Total Population: 144,5 million people
Capital: Moscow
Life expectancy: 71.87 years (Males: 66.5 & Females: 77.06)
Highest Mountain: Mount Elbrus (5642 meters)
Land area: 17,125,191 km2 (6,612,073 sq mi)
Largest Lake: Lake Baikal
National Day: June 12
Government: Federal dominant-party semi-presidential constitutional republic
President: Vladimir Putin
Currency: Russian ruble (₽) (RUB)
Official language: Russian.
Religion: No official religion, but about 40% are Russian Orthodox.
Member of Nato: No
National song: “State Anthem of the Russian Federation”
Time zone: UTC+2 to +12
Country Number/Prefix: 007
Country Code: RU

The Biggest Cities in Russia

If you’re looking for facts about Russia, it might also be interesting to know which are the biggest cities. Here’s a list of the top 10 biggest Russian cities ranked after population.