Page 68 - The Baltic Capitals & St. Petersburg

National Holidays: Russia

In addition to the holidays listed below, 02/23 Defender of the Fatherland Day
Russia celebrates a number of national
03/08 International Women’s Day
holidays that follow a lunar calendar, such
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you will be traveling during these holidays,
please visit www.timeanddate.com/ 05/01 Labor Day
holidays.
05/09 Victory Day
01/01 New Year’s Day
06/12 Russia Day
01/07 Orthodox Christmas Day
11/04 Unity Day

Historical Overview of Russia
Early History

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Slavs who peopled the region currently known as Russia in the 10th to 11th centuries. Like
many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongol invaders, who
formed the state of Golden Horde which would pillage the Russian principalities for over three
centuries. Later known as the Tatars, they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-
day Russia, while the territories of present-day Ukraine and Belarus were incorporated into the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland, thus dividing the Russian people in the north from the
Belarusians and Ukrainians in the west. This long-lasting nomadic rule retarded the country’s
economic and social development.

Muscovy

While still under the domain of the Mongols and with their connivance, the duchy of Moscow
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of all the Russias”.
In the beginning of the 16th century the Russian state set the national goal to return all
Russian territories lost as a result of the Mongolian invasion and to protect the southern
borderland against attacks of Crimean Tatars and other Turkic peoples.

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reign, Ivan annexed the Muslim polities along the Volga River and transformed Russia into
a multiethnic and multiconfessional state. By the end of the century, Russian Cossacks
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was largely peaceful, in sharp contrast to the build-up of other colonial empires of the time.

Imperial Russia

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