Russian Empire

The area that is now the Russian capital was the original Principality of Moscow, the forerunner of the Russian Empire. Czar Ivan IV, however, started an expansionary campaign in the middle of the 16th century. The Russian Empire had expanded by the middle of the 17th century, and was now located across from the modern-day US state of Alaska, on the Bering Sea coast. Alaska actually once belonged to the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire grew to encompass territory in the Caucasus and Central Asia by the late 19th century. It is also one of the largest empires of all time.

The empire's borders included a total of 22.8 million square kilometers, extending from the northern coast of Asia to the borders of modern-day Afghanistan and Iran in the east and from the Bering Sea in the west. Even though the region it previously controlled in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and a portion of Eastern Europe is now a part of other nations, the Russian Federation still holds a large portion of the former Russian Empire's former territory.

The Russian Empire operated as an absolute monarchy up to the Russian Revolution of 1905, after which a nominal semi-constitutional monarchy was formed. It didn't work well during World War I, though, which sparked the February Revolution. The monarchy was abolished in 1917 with Nicholas II's abdication. The Russian Civil War began as a result of the Bolsheviks seizing control of the Russian Republic during the October Revolution. The Romanov dynasty was put to death by the Bolsheviks in 1918, and after winning the Russian Civil War in 1922–1923, they formed the Soviet Union over the majority of the old Russian Empire's territory.