Russia

Rich, black topsoil found in the Northern European Plain, especially in Russia and Ukraine

• Chernozem

• Loess

Effect of extreme variation in temperature and very little precipitation within the interior portions of a landmass

• Continentality

• Oblast

Ruler of Russia until the 1917 revolution; originally from Latin word Caesar, title of Roman emperors

• Czar

• Massif

A government program that required everyone in the empire to speak Russian and to become a Christian

• Russification

• Balkanization

A country controlled by another country, notably Eastern European countries controlled by the Soviet Union by the end of World War II

• Satellite

• Remittance

Illegal trade of scarce or illegal goods, usually sold at high prices

• Black Market

• Shatter Belt

First czar of Russia, known for cruelty and being constantly at war

• Ivan the Terrible

• Peter the Great

A Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He Led the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. He served as the head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924.

• Vladimir Lenin

• Karl Marx

Bolshevik revolutionary, head of the Soviet Communists after 1924, and dictator of the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1953. He led the Soviet Union with an iron fist, using Five-Year Plans to increase industrial production and terror to crush opposition

• Joseph Stalin

• Vladimir Lenin

Philosopher, political economist, theorist, sociologist, and revolutionary. Often recognized as the father of communism. He believed in a classless society, and wanted to replace capitalism with an economic system in which workers would own property in common and share the wealth they produced.

• Karl Marx

• Joseph Stalin