Formerly the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Russia has been an independent nation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. As part of the Soviet Union, it was called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, or the Russian Federation. With an area of 6,592,800 square miles (17,075,300 square kilometers), it is the world’s largest country, almost twice the size of either China or the United States. Covering much of Eastern Europe as well as the whole of Northern Asia, Russia extends nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere. It stretches some 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) along the Arctic Circle and from 1,250 to 1,800 miles (2,000 to 2,900 kilometers) north to south. Its most characteristic landscape is a rolling to flat plain. Two such plains are divided by the Ural Mountains that form the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia (see Ural Mountains). In contrast, eastern Siberia is hilly to mountainous tableland. There are active volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands

COINS ARE ALL PICTURED THE SAME SIZE FOR CLARITY
SEE DESCRIPTION FOR SIZES