An ethnic group of East Slavic origin primarily residing in Russia and its neighboring regions are known as Russian People. If you join Russian Forum you will come across many information about them. Of course the term Russian will refer to the people residing there irrespective of their ethnic origins. However, taking into consideration all aspects the modern Russian people can be classified in to two ethnic groups, the northern Russians and the southern Russians. They are made of several divergent tribes like the Kriviches, Radimichs, Vyatiches, Serverians and the Ilmen Slavs. They are also very similar to the Poles and Ukrainians. In addition the Russians living in the north also bear similarities with the Finno Ugric clans.



Ethnologists mostly believe that Russian ethnicity evolved out of the ancient time Rus people that include the East Slavs or the Kevan Rus. One of the branches evolved into the modern time Belarusian. Some of the branches are also like the East Mediterranean people. They are found mostly in the Southern Russia. However, the majority of the Russians are the offshoot of the East Slavic tribes that migrated from the East European Plains. Towards the end of the eleventh century, East Slavs mingled with the Merya, Finno-Ugric, Muroma and Baltic tribes. A lot of information is available on the evolution of the Russian people on the Russian Forum.

By the 15th century, ethnic Russian people were recognized all over the world as the Great Russians. They were also known as the Moscow Russians. By the 16th century they settled on the banks of Volga, Urlas and Northern Cauasus regions. The people moved further east and mostly the Cossacs occupied Siberia and Russian Far East by the 18th and 19th centuries. Today around 140 millions of Russians live in and around Russia forming the largest ethnic group in Europe. Around 120 millions out of them reside in Russia alone. Culturally and language wise Russia has been very rich and many notable authors have come from them on the world scenario. Notable among them are Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostevsky, Chekhov, Mayakovsky, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Bordsky, Gorky, Nabokov, Sholokhov, Bulgakov, and Solzhenitsyn. The Russian Forum is full of discussions on these notable authors and is a great place to get information on Russian culture.

Russian is the language spoken by majority of the people in Russia. The language with Belarusian and Ukrainian constitutes the East Slavic Languages. However Russian language has evolved over the years to absorb a huge quantity of foreign vocabularies, especially in the realms of politics, science as well as technology. The language also had international status and importance as the erstwhile Soviet Union was a super power in the twentieth century. Russian is still one of the official languages of United Nations. One of the unique characteristic of the language is that it contains palatal secondary articulation in use of the consonants. You can learn on the Russian Forum about the importance of stress factor in Russian language.

Nearly 63% of the people are orthodox Christians. The representation of other religions is nominal in the country. However, a recent trend in the country is growing popularity of Slavianism as religion. In science and technology Russia has always taken a premier position. The first satellite on space, the Sputnik 1 was from Russia, and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin was a Russian. In Music, the compositions of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Kosakov, Rachmaninoff etc have added to the name and fame of the Russian People across the globe. Perhaps the greatest contribution of Russian people, as you can find in discussions on the Russian Forum, was their role played in the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.