Business News Russia | Page 36

Russia

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Major sea ports of Russia include Rostov-on-Don on the Azov Sea, Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, Astrakhan and Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea, Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea, Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, Murmansk on the Barents Sea, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. In 2008 Russia owned 1448 merchant marine ships. Russia is the only country to have nuclear icebreaker fleet, which is a great advantage in the economic exploitation of Arctic continental shelf of Russia and the development of sea trade through the Northern Sea Route between Europe and East Asia.

There are 74,285 km of oil pipelines in Russia, 13,658 km of pipelines for refined products, 158,767 km of natural gas pipelines By total length of pipelines Russia is second only to the United States. Currently, many new

pipeline projects are being realized, including Nord Stream and South Stream natural gas pipelines to Europe, and ESPO oil pipeline to Russian Far East and China.

Russia has 1216 airports, the busiest being Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Vnukovo in Moscow and Pulkovo in Saint Petersburg. The total length of airlines in Russia exceeds 600,000 km. In the remote regions of the Russian North and Siberia the transportation by air (usually by helicopters) is vital, and in some months of the year it is the only transport link to the rest of the country.

Typically, major Russian cities have well-developed and diverse systems of public transport, with the most common varieties of exploited vehicles being bus, trolleybus and tram. Seven Russian cities, namely Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Samara, Yekaterinburg and Kazan, have undeground metros, while Volgograd features a metrotram. Total length of metros in Russia is 465.4 km. Moscow Metro and Saint Petersburg Metro are the oldest in Russia, opened in 1935 and 1955 respectively. These two are among the fastest and busiest metro systems in the world, and are famous for rich decorations and unique designs of their stations, which is a common tradition for Russian metros and railways.

Culture

Folk culture and cuisine

There are over 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples in Russia.

The White House, the seat of the Russian Government, Moscow.