Europe:

1
Europe Farewell to an Idea
Speaker Mr Les Rowe
2
Russian Federation
3
Russian Federation

• Area Russia occupies 1/7 of the worlds
  landmass - 17 million square kilometres (the
  Soviet Union was 24 million sq kms) with the
  longest land borders in the world (and the
  responsibility
• to defend them).

4
Russian Federation

• It covers ten time zones it takes nine hours to
  fly Moscow to Vladivostok
• The tsarist empire, the nucleus of the Soviet
  Union, provided a secure land cordon around most
  of the Russian (Slavic) heartland the
  dissolution
• of the Soviet Union removed
• that buffer .

5
Russian Federation

• The RF has land borders with North Korea, China,
  Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia,
  Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland,
  Norway, Poland and Lithuania and maritime
  borders with Japan and the US

6
Russian Federation

• Five EU member states share land borders with the
  RF of its neighbours, Georgia and Ukraine are EU
  aspirants.
• Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania (former
  Warsaw Pact and recent NATO members) have land
  borders with the RF

7
Russian Federation

• Its population is falling from 149 million in
  1991 to 142 million (Jan 2009 estimate) some
  projections have the population falling to
  between 77- 103 million by 2053. a decline in
  health standards, alcoholism and AIDS are all
  contributory factors

8
Russian Federation

• 80 of the population lives west of the Urals
  only 20 in RFE and Siberia
• The Russian Federation is divided into 73
  administrative regions

9
Russian Federation

• A little over 7 of land in Russia is arable the
  RF has extensive forests and is a major producer
  of oil and gas, coal and a wide range of
  minerals.
• It is a multicultural and multiethnic nation