Chapter 1:

After the collapse of the Hunnic empire in the 5th century the slavic peoples in what
is today western Russia started to move and create their own little kingdoms. In the
9th century, the Russian peoples asked to a nordic people to come rule over them.
The leader of that nordic nation was Rurik, who came to Russia and founded the
Kievan Empire, which conquered some of its neighbours an established their capital
in Kiev. The Kievan Empire adopted Eastern Orthodoxy as their main religion,
creating close bonds with the Byzantine Empire in Turkey. In the decennia after,
however, the Kievan Empire fell apart into a lot of little kingdoms which resulted in a
lot of capitals being created, including Novgorod and Moscow. In the 13th century
the Mongols conquered all those little kingdoms, but around 1400 the kingdom of
Moscow was able to declare independance from the Mongols and conquer a lot of
territory around them. With the Mongols defeated Moscow changed its name to
Russia.

Chapter 2:
With even more land being conquered after 1450 the Moscovian dynasty of kings
started to call themselves tsars, which is the Russian name for emperor. Ivan the
terrible wasone of the first tsars of Russia. His name, the terrible, is actually a wrong
translation. In Russia he is called Ivan grozny, which ment that he instilled authority.
Ivan the terrible tried to heavily decrease the power of the Russian nobility and he
killed a lot of nobles. After the death of Ivan the terrible, a period of chaos broke out
because all the noble families thought they had the most right on the title of tsar.
Later even the king of Poland and the king of Sweden interfered. Out of this chaos
came the Romanovs as the next tsar dynasty, which would rule Russia for over 250
years. One of the first things the Romanovs did was conquer Siberia, which was then
an empty continent after the Mongols had left it.

Chapter 3:
Probably one of the most famous tsars is Peter the Great. He made a lot of trade
connections with western European nations and during the nordic war he conquered
a lot of territory from Sweden and Poland, making Russia a true superpower. After
Peter the great some Tsarinas came to power, the most famous one being Catherine
the Great. During her rule Russia conquered Kamtsjatka and Alaska, adding even
more territory for Russia to hunt for furs, which was their main export. During the
napoleonic wars Tsar Alexander I used the tactic of the scorched earth and defeated
the French army after heavy fighting,making the Russians the Liberators of Europe.
After this Russia was even more powerful. The next tsar, Nicolas I increased
Russias industrialization and railway network very much. During this period Russias
 economy and military power grew enormously and it became one of the strongest
nations in the world.
Chapter 4:
In the period after 1850 Russias economy faced stagnation and Russia was outrun
industrially by a lot of western European nations because it was originally and mainly
a farmer nation. That is why the Russian government sold alaska to the United
States for 7.2 million dollars. After the French-Prussian war Russia made a bond of
three emperors with Germany and Austria-Hungary until Wilhelm II stopped it. To let
its army keep up with European nations Nicolas II Reformed the army with new
weapons etc. which would finish in 1917. During this period a faith healer named
Rasputin made it to the most important advisor of the tsar, but he let the tsar make a
lot of mistakes and was assasinated by nobles in 1912. Because Russia had its
army fully in development it wasnt ready for WWI at all. This resulted in a lot of
losses and in 1917 the February revolution, but the government established then
wanted to continue the war so after that the October revolution led by Lenin and his
Bolshevik/Communist party founded the Soviet Union. He quickly made peace with
Germany and defeated the Whites(people who supported the government
esablished in Febuary) in a civil war.

Chapter 5:
After the civil war Lenin quickly died. His place was taken by Stalin, who mainly
focused on heavy industry in his five-year plans. He installed a very strict censor and
killed a lot of people who opposed him. The Russians often were in famine and fife
conditions were not good. Despite all this he did good things for the Russian heavy
industry, being probably the main reason for the Soviet Union defeating Nazi-
germany in WWII. In WWII Russia used the tactic of the scorched earth again, and
the battle of Stalingrad was the main turning point of WWII, with Nazi-germany
suffering heavy losses and getting defeated in a major battle for the first time. After
the Soviets captured Berlin they expanded enormously in eastern Europe. After
Stalin died in 1953 however, the other members of the communist party destroyed
almost everything reminding of him because of all the bad things he had done to the
Russian people, a Destalinisation. It is therefore very argued about by hisorians
whether Stalin was a good person or not.

Chapter 6:
After Stalin died Chroesjtsjov became the next leader of the Soviet Union. He is
mostly known for his not-so-friendly foreign policy. He ordered nuclear missiles to be
put on Cuba, which just got a communist regime established by Fidel Castro. This
missile placement resulted in the Cuba-crisis, which almost led to WWIII. He also
didnt make good friends with the Chinese by creating worse territorial disputes. The
last major thing he did was bringing a new destalinisation. In 1963 Brezjnev was the
new leader of the Soviet Union. During his reign, the Soviet economy grew steadily
 until around 1983. He installed the Brezjnev-doctrine, which allowed the Soviet
Union to hold any communist government established by them in any way. This
resulted in e.g. the interference in Chechoslovakia. He also ordered interference in
Vietnam. He tried to establish a treaty of cooperation with western Europe and the
US, but it failed. Gorbatsjov, who came to power in 1985, introduced a new policy,
Perestrojka which stands for rebuilding abnd glasnost which stand for more freedom.
His goal was to get the eastern European cuntries to stand on their own, leading to
the collapse of aal the communist regimes there. However, his goal never was to
bring down the Soviet Union, but using the new freedom, e.g. the baltic countries
wanted to be independent. This led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Chapter 7:

The first president of Russia was the very popular Jeltsin. He believed it was best to
directly force the market economy into Russias already fairly low economy. This
didnt work out because a lot of company leaders were still Soviet people and they
could basically do whatever they want. Companys were totally free, but the majority
of the population was still poor and corruption was normal. During his second term
rebels in Tsjetsjenia wanted freedom, but the poorly maintenanced Russian army
wasnt able to defeat them and in some cases, Russian generals even sold guns to
Tsjetsjenian rebels.During this period of time Russia was in a deep economic crisis.
When Putin came to power in 2000, this changed. He heavily increased central
aurhority over big companies, which led to Russias economy starting to grow again
and corruption to decline. He also installed some policies that try to increase
population growth. Although Medvedev became president of Russia in 2008, Putin is
still very popular in Russia and still has a lot of influence. So the question is: The
time of Medvedev has begun, but when will Putins time end?