10 Fun Facts About Russia

Hey guys welcome to another video, today I will be sharing with you 10 fun facts about Russia.

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1. Russia is a federal semi-presidential republic, meaning a president exists along with a prime minister and a Cabinet, with the latter two being responsible for the legislature of Russia.

2. Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. At 17,075,400 square kilometres it has a larger surface area than Pluto. Furthermore Russia has nine contiguous time zones, more than any other country.

3. The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for just US$7.2 million in 1867, which comes up to around $121 million in 2015 dollars. Russia wanted to sell its Alaskan territory, fearing that it might be seized if war broke out with Britain.

4. Until 2013 beer was not considered an alcoholic beverage in Russia. This was because any drink containing less than 10% alcohol was not considered an alcoholic beverage and kiosks did not require a license to sell it.

5. Lake Baikal, a rift lake in Russia, is the largest (by volume) freshwater lake in the world, containing roughly 20% of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water. With a maximum depth of 1,642 m (5,387 ft), Baikal is the world's deepest lake. With 23,615.39 km3 (5,700 cu mi) of fresh water, it contains more water than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

6. The Trans-Siberian Railway, located in Russia, spans almost all the way across the country, making it the single longest railway in the world. The 9200 kilometers (or 5700 mile) railway departs in Moscow (located in European Russia) and crosses into Asia. It then makes its way to the Pacific Ocean port of Vladivostok where it reaches the end of its incredible journey. The entire journey non-stop will take you 152 hours and 27 minutes to complete.

7. . Russia has 695 tonnes of highly enriched uranium which accounts for half the global stockpile. To put this in perspective it only took 64kg of highly enriched uranium to create the "Little Boy" bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima, which killed and injured over 100'000 Japanese civilians.

8. There is no word for 'fun' in Russian. There is a word for pleasant and a word for interesting, but there really isn’t a Russian word for fun.
Pleasant = приятный, interesting = Интересно

9. Even though Russia has a large Christian population, New Year's is a way bigger deal than Christmas. This was because in the days of the Soviet Union, Christmas was not celebrated very much. New Year was the important time. Now a days Christmas is normally celebrated on January 7th (only a few Catholics might celebrate it on the 25th December). The date is different because the Russian Orthodox church uses the old 'Julian' calendar for religious celebration days. The Orthodox Church also celebrates Advent. But it has fixed dates, starting on 28th November and going to the 6th January, so it's 40 days long.

10. A russian woman in the 1700s gave birth to 69 children. 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets. Little is known about her, such as her name, date of birth, and other details of her life, except that she was the wife to a man from Shuya, Russia, Feodor Vassilyev.

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