Russia

is the colloquial Aeldman name for the Empire of Rossya, the largest nation on the two-gate world of Zemlya. After the colonization of Zemlya millennia ago by what appear to have been the Knights of Idolmar, the planet adopted a syncretist faith, revering local gods as saints of Zdorov, the Healer in Heaven. The Tsar, probably originally a tribal leader before the development of Russian national consciousness and empire, is revered as an incarnated saint of Zdorov.
== History ==
=== Rediscovery ===
Russia faced a brief but humiliating colonial period shortly after a shift in the Aether led to its rediscovery in the early 3rd century A.U., in which its gate-city of Dalcia was held as a glorifed customs house by the Aeldrum Trade Company. Conspiracy by the Knights Mercantile led both to the liberation of Dalcia by modernizing Russian troops and to the salvation of the Russian imperial state from a violent uprising by radical adherents of imported communist and anarchist ideology. Tsarevitch Alexander Rurik, who abbeted the Knights Mercantile and used their dubious assistance to cover the empire's financial shortfalls and begin industrial development, became a national hero as prince and Tsar and is remembered to this day as Tsar Aleksandyr the Father of the Nation.
=== Revolution ===
In the early 4th century, Russian trade was nominally controlled by the Tsar but in actuality dominated by the Russian Silk House, an imperial-licensed trade company secretly dominated by the Knights Mercantile. By the last quarter of the 4th century, however, a palace coup replaced an ailing Tsar Nicholas V with the auspiciously named Aleksandyr II, who revoked the Silk House license and centralized much of Russia's industry in a national Imperial Holding Company.  The result was fiscal disaster, and Aleksandyr was forced to accept a considerable (though well hidden) bailout from his coup backer, the Count of Lidenia. The hated Aeldrum Trade Company still has no official presence on Zemlya, but Lidenia has ensured that he personally controls most of the flow of Russia's valuable silk offworld.  
Category:Nations