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Info About Russia
Contents:
GOVERNMENT
Country name:
Conventional long form: Russian Federation
Conventional short form: Russia
Local long form: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya
Local short form: Rossiya
Former: Russian Empire, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Government type: federation
Capital: Moscow
Administrative divisions:
49 oblasts (oblastey, singular — oblast), 21 republics* (respublik, singular — respublika), 10 autonomous okrugs**(avtonomnykh okrugov, singular — avtonomnyy okrug), 6 krays*** (krayev, singular — kray), 2 federal cities (singular — gorod)****, and 1 autonomous oblast*****(avtonomnaya oblast');
Adygeya (Maykop)*, Aginskiy Buryatskiy (Aginskoye)**, Altay (Gorno-Altaysk)*, Altayskiy (Barnaul)***, Amurskaya (Blagoveshchensk), Arkhangel'skaya, Astrakhanskaya, Bashkortostan (Ufa)*, Belgorodskaya, Bryanskaya, Buryatiya (Ulan-Ude)*, Chechnya (Groznyy)*, Chelyabinskaya, Chitinskaya, Chukotskiy (Anadyr')**, Chuvashiya (Cheboksary)*, Dagestan (Makhachkala)*, Evenkiyskiy (Tura)**, Ingushetiya (Nazran')*, Irkutskaya, Ivanovskaya, Kabardino-Balkariya (Nal'chik)*, Kaliningradskaya, Kalmykiya (Elista)*, Kaluzhskaya, Kamchatskaya (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy), Karachayevo-Cherkesiya (Cherkessk)*, Kareliya (Petrozavodsk)*, Kemerovskaya, Khabarovskiy***, Khakasiya (Abakan)*, Khanty-Mansiyskiy (Khanty-Mansiysk)**, Kirovskaya, Komi (Syktyvkar)*, Koryakskiy (Palana)**, Kostromskaya, Krasnodarskiy***, Krasnoyarskiy***, Kurganskaya, Kurskaya, Leningradskaya, Lipetskaya, Magadanskaya, Mariy-El (Yoshkar-Ola)*, Mordoviya (Saransk)*, Moskovskaya, Moskva (Moscow)****, Murmanskaya, Nenetskiy (Nar'yan-Mar)**, Nizhegorodskaya, Novgorodskaya, Novosibirskaya, Omskaya, Orenburgskaya, Orlovskaya (Orel), Penzenskaya, Permskaya, Komi-Permyatskiy (Kudymkar)**, Primorskiy (Vladivostok)***, Pskovskaya, Rostovskaya, Ryazanskaya, Sakha (Yakutsk)*, Sakhalinskaya (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), Samarskaya, Sankt-Peterburg (Saint Petersburg)****, Saratovskaya, Severnaya Osetiya-Alaniya [North Ossetia] (Vladikavkaz)*, Smolenskaya, Stavropol'skiy***, Sverdlovskaya (Yekaterinburg), Tambovskaya, Tatarstan (Kazan')*, Taymyrskiy (Dudinka)**, Tomskaya, Tul'skaya, Tverskaya, Tyumenskaya, Tyva (Kyzyl)*, Udmurtiya (Izhevsk)*, Ul'yanovskaya, Ust'-Ordynskiy Buryatskiy (Ust'-Ordynskiy)**, Vladimirskaya, Volgogradskaya, Vologodskaya, Voronezhskaya, Yamalo-Nenetskiy (Salekhard)**, Yaroslavskaya, Yevreyskaya*****;
Note — when using a place name with an adjectival ending 'skaya' or 'skiy,' the word Oblast' or Avonomnyy Okrug or Kray should be added to the place name.
Independence: 24 August 1991 (from Soviet Union)
National holiday: Russia Day, 12 June (1990)
Constitution: adopted 12 December 1993
Legal system: based on civil law system; judicial review of legislative acts.
Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal.
Executive branch:
Chief of state: President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (acting president since 31 December 1999, president since 7 May 2000).
Head of government: Premier Mikhail Mikhaylovich Kasyanov (since 7 May 2000); First Deputy Premier Aleksey Leonidovich Kudrin (since 18 May 2000), Deputy Premiers Aleksey Vasilyevich Gordeyev (since 20 May 2000), Viktor Borisovich Khristenko (since 31 May 1999), Ilya Iosifovich Klebanov (since 31 May 1999), Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko (since 22 September 1998).
Cabinet: Ministries of the Government or "Government" composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers, and other agency heads; all are appointed by the president.
Note: there is also a Presidential Administration (PA) that provides staff and policy support to the president, drafts presidential decrees, and coordinates policy among government agencies; a Security Council also reports directly to the president.
Elections: president elected by popular vote for a four-year term; election last held 26 March 2000 (next to be held NA 2004); note — no vice president; if the president dies in office, cannot exercise his powers because of ill health, is impeached, or resigns, the premier succeeds him; the premier serves as acting president until a new presidential election is held, which must be within three months; premier appointed by the president with the approval of the Duma.
Election results: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin elected president; percent of vote — Putin 52.9%, Gennadiy Aadreyevich Zyuganov — 29.2%, Grigoriy Alekseyevich Yavlinskiy — 5.8%
Legislative branch:
Bicameral Federal Assembly or Federalnoye Sobraniye consists of the Federation Council or Sovet Federatsii (178 seats; as of July 2000, members appointed by the top executive and legislative officials in each of the 89 federal administrative units — oblasts, krays, republics, autonomous okrugs and oblasts, and the federal cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg; members serve four-year terms) and the State Duma or Gosudarstvennaya Duma (450 seats; half elected by proportional representation from party lists winning at least 5% of the vote, and half from single-member constituencies; members are elected by direct popular vote to serve four-year terms).
Elections: State Duma — last held 19 December 1999 (next to be held NA December 2003).
Election results: State Duma — percent of vote received by parties clearing the 5% threshold entitling them to a proportional share of the 225 party list seats — KPRF 24.29%, Unity 23.32%, OVR 13.33%, Union of Right Forces 8.52%, LDPR 5.98%, Yabloko 5.93%; seats by party — KPRF 113, Unity 72, OVR 67, Union of Rightist Forces 29, LDPR 17, Yabloko 21, other 16, independents 106, repeat election required 8, vacant 1.
Judicial branch: Constitutional Court; Supreme Court; Superior Court of Arbitration; judges for all courts are appointed for life by the Federation Council on the recommendation of the president.
Political parties and leaders:
Elections: Agrarian Party [Mikhail Ivanovich Lapshin]; Communist Party of the Russian Federation or KPRF [Gennadiy Andreyevich Zyuganov]; Fatherland-All Russia or OVR [Yuriy Mikhailovich Luzhkov]; Liberal Democratic Party of Russia or LDPR [Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovskiy]; Union of Right Forces [Anatoliy Borisovich Chubays, Yegor Timurovich Gaydar, Irina Mutsuovna Khakamada, Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov]; Unity [Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoygu]; Yabloko Bloc [Grigoriy Alekseyevich Yavlinskiy].
Note: some 150 political parties, blocs, and movements registered with the Justice Ministry as of the 19 December 1998 deadline to be eligible to participate in the 19 December 1999 Duma elections; of these, 36 political organizations actually qualified to run slates of candidates on the Duma party list ballot, 6 parties cleared the 5% threshold to win a proportional share of the 225 party seats in the Duma, 9 other organizations hold seats in the Duma: Bloc of Nikolayev and Academician Fedorov, Congress of Russian Communities, Movement in Support of the Army, Our Home Is Russia, Party of Pensioners, Power to the People, Russian All-People's Union, Russian Socialist Party, and Spiritual Heritage; primary political blocs include pro-market democrats — (Yabloko Bloc and Union of Right Forces), anti-market and/or ultranationalist (Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia).
Political pressure groups and leaders: NA
International organization participation: APEC, ASEAN (dialogue partner), BIS, BSEC, CBSS, CCC, CE, CERN (observer), CIS, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, ESCAP, G-8, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM (observer), ISO, ITU, LAIA (observer), MINURSO, MONUC, NAM (guest), NSG, OAS (observer), OPCW, OSCE, PCA, PFP, UN, UN Security Council, UNAMSIL, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNIKOM, UNITAR, UNMEE, UNMIBH, UNMIK, UNMOP, UNOMIG, UNTAET, UNTSO, UPU, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO (observer), ZC.
Diplomatic representation in the US:
Chief of mission: Ambassador Yuriy Viktorovich Ushakov
Chancery: 2650 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20007
Telephone: [1] (202) 298-5700, 5701, 5704, 5708
Fax: [1] (202) 298-5735
Consulate(s) general: New York, San Francisco, and Seattle
Diplomatic representation from the US:
Chief of mission: Ambassador James F. COLLINS
Embassy: Novinskiy Bul'var 19/23, 121099 Moscow
Mailing address: APO AE 09721
Telephone: [7] (095) 728-5000
Fax: [7] (095) 728-5203
Consulate(s) general: Saint Petersburg, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg
Flag description: Three equal horizontal bands of white (top), blue, and red.
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