The size of Russia is bigger than that of Pluto. If Siberia were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. Russia stretches about 10000 km east to west, which is almost three times the diameter of the moon, one-and-a-half times the diameter of mars and just 2000 km short of earth’s diameter.
Russia’s total natural resources are valued at USD 75 trillion. Russia has the largest reserves and is the largest exporter of natural gas. It has the second largest coal reserves, the eighth largest oil reserves and is the largest exporter of oil in the world.
Russia is a leading producer of copper, fluorspar, iron ore, lime, gold, magnesium compound and metals, mica, cobalt, aluminum, asbestos, arsenic, cadmium, coal, cement, boron, bauxite, vanadium, titanium sponge, tin, tungsten, potash, sulfur, silicon, rhenium, steel, pig iron, nickel, palladium, phosphate, petroleum, nitrogen, peat and oil shale.
Russia has 40% of world’s gold reserves. 20% of the global production of industrial grade diamonds and 25% of global gemstone production come from Russia.
11% of the global aluminum market is controlled by just one Russian company, Rusal.
Russia has more than a fifth of the world’s forests. About one-fifth of the timber in the entire world is present in the forests of Siberia.
If you laid the oil and gas pipelines of Russia around the equator, it would encircle earth 6 times.
Only one lake of Russia, Lake Baikal has 20 percent of entire fresh water in the world.
Russia has 4 of the 10 largest rivers in the world.
Russia’s top 20 billionaires have a combined wealth of about USD 250 billion, which is more than the GDP of 150 individual countries in the world.
Russian inventions include the transformer, helicopter, videotape recorder, synthetic rubber, grain harvester, the electrical telegraph, arc welding, radiator, powdered milk and thousands of other things without which life would be very different today.
Russia has the largest number of nuclear weapons in the world. Russia’s RS-24 Yars Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) has ten independently targetable nuclear warheads, which can reenter earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds at around 5 miles a second.
Russia has the largest atomic bomb – Tsar Bomb, which was detonated way back in 1961. In 2013, Russia was the largest arms exporter in the world. It occupies second place now.
