The Eastern Slavs, an Indo-European group, settled in the region of western Russia and Poland from about 1500 BC. From the 9th century AD Viking explorers from Scandinavia, known as the Rus, began to follow the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga rivers inland. The name “Rus” may come from characteristic red hair, or alternatively from the old Danish word rođsmenn, meaning rowers or seafarers.   Novgorod and Kiev became their main trading bases on routes from the Baltic to the Black Sea.  In the 10th century a version of Greek Orthodox Christianity took root. Kievan Russia echoed the Byzantine tradition and the first laws were established, bringing the state on to equal terms with other mediæval European states.

By the 12th century Kievan Russia had become tempting to raiders from the east, and was attacked by the Polovtsi (nomadic Turks) and the Mongols – known as the Golden Horde. It is only in the 15th century that the Principality of Muscovy (now centred in Moscow) emerged from 200 years of Mongol domination.

In the 17th century Russian trading territory expanded in both Europe and Asia beyond the Urals. Peter the Great (ruling 1682-1725) consolidated a Russian Empire extending from the Baltic to Siberia, and moved his capital to St Petersburg to ensure its Europeanisation.

In the early 20th century a widening gap between the Tsarist aristocracy and the people triggered rioting in major cities and the eventual revolution of 1917. Shortly afterwards the communists under Vladimir Lenin seized power and set up the Союз Советских Социалистических Республи (CCCP or in English translation USSR - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The rule of Iosif (Josef) Stalin, a Georgian sometimes called the Red Tsar, introduced a period of murder and forced migration in the 1930s that cost millions of Russian lives. The Nazi invasion of the Second World War ended with civilian and military deaths estimated at more than 26 million.

Major changes began in 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernise Communism. This led in 1991 to the break-up of the USSR into the Russian Federation and 14 other now independent states. Under Vladimir Putin the gradual re-establishment of law began an economic recovery, mainly exploiting Russia's huge energy resources.