 | Term | Definition |
| |
Eurasia |
the land mass formed by the continents of Europe and Asia |
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Ice Breaker |
a ship that can break through ice, to allow ships to pass |
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Taiga |
a forest of evergreen trees growing south of the tundra in Russia |
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Volga River |
the longest river in Europe; flows into the Caspian Sea |
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Lake Baikal |
deepest fresh water lake in the world; holds 20% of world's unfrozen fresh water |
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Ural Mountains |
a mountain range in western Russia extending from the arctic to the Caspian Sea; forms part of the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia |
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Siberia |
a vast Asian region of Russia; famous for long cold winters |
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Murmansk |
a port city in northwestern Russia on the Kola Peninsula; the largest city north of the Arctic Circle; an important supply line to Russia in World War I and World War II |
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Chernozem |
the rich black topsoil found in the North European Plain, especially in Russia and Ukraine |
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Slavs |
a single people in central Europe who divided into 3 major groups: western, southern, and eastern |
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Rus |
the medieval Russian state established by Scandanavian traders in the 9th century; the capital was first in Novgorod and then in Kiev |
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Cossacks |
free groups and outlaw armies of peasants who fled the tzar and service nobility |
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Bolsheviks |
spreaders of communism in Russia |
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Czars |
emperors of Russia with complete and total control of the government |
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Serfs |
peasants that belong to the land |
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Abdicate |
give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations |
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Soviets |
the government of the Soviet Union |
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Gulag |
a Russian prison camp for political prisoners |
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Orthodox Christianity |
religion practiced by most greeks |
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Steppes |
grassy plains, found south of the taiga in Russia,Ukraine, and parts of Eastern Europe. |
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Vladimir Lenin |
Russian founder of the Bolsheviks and leader of the Russian Revolution and first head of the USSR (1870-1924) |
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Karl Marx |
founder of modern communism |
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Cyrillic Alphabet |
an alphabet drived from the Greek alphabet and used for writing Slavic languages |
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Light Industry |
production of consumer goods such as food products and household goods |
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Smelters |
ore processing factories |
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Chernobyl |
a city in north central Ukraine; site of a major disaster at a nuclear power plant (16 April 1986) |
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Trans-Siberian Railroad |
a railroad running from Murmansk to Vladivostak |
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Joseph Stalin |
Russian leader who succeeded Lenin as head of the Communist Party and created a totalitarian state by purging all opposition (1879-1953) |
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Borscht |
a Russian soup usually containing beet juice as a foundation |
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Heavy Industry |
industry that produces manufactured goods such as machinery |
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Vladivostak |
a big city at the end of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. |
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Kremlin |
citadel of Moscow, housing the offices of the Russian government |
