Volga

Flag of The Volgan Federation

### Religion

Christianity (47.3%) • Islam (6.5%) • Neo-paganism and Tengrism (1.2%) • Buddhism (0.5%) • Other (0.2%) • Believers Without Religion (25%) • No Religion (13%) • Undeclared (5.5%)

## Legislature & Government

### Government Type

Federal semi-presidential constitutional republic

### Lower House

State Duma

**Volga** (Volgan: Волга), officially the **Volgan Federation** (Volgan: Волганская Федерация), is a country spanning the east of Auro bordering Aamu, Nordenland and the **Aquealean** overseas territory of **Aquoro**. It has a population of 146.2 million, and is the most populous country in Auro and the sixth most populous country in the world.

**Moscow** (Volgan: Москва) is the capital and largest city of Volga. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Volga, with a population estimated at 12.4 million residents within the city limits, over 17 million residents in the urban area, and over 20 million residents in the metropolitan area. The city covers an area of 2,511 square kilometres, while the urban area covers 5,891 square kilometres and the metropolitan area covers over 26,000 square kilometres. It is among the world's largest cities.

Volga is a known **nuclear power**. From the cold war, lasting 1947-1989, both Volga (then Union of Northern Socialist Republics) and the United States of Americus saw intense rivalry. It saw the dawn of a still-lasting nuclear stalemate between Volga and the United States, each possessing weapons of mass destruction and being capable of annihilating the other.

## History

One of the first modern human bones of over 40,000 years old were found in Southern Volga, in the villages of Kostyonki and Borshchyovo situated on the banks of the Don River.

Nomadic pastoralism developed in the Pontic–Caspian steppe beginning in the Chalcolithic. Remnants of these steppe civilizations were discovered in places such as Ipatovo, Sintashta, Arkaim and Pazyryk, which bear the earliest known traces of horses in warfare. In classical antiquity, the Pontic-Caspian Steppe was known as Scythia.

In late 8th century BCE, Ancient Graecian traders brought classical civilization to the trade emporiums in Tanais and Phanagoria.

The ancestors of modern Volgans are the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes, one of the largest wetlands in Auro. The East Slavs gradually settled Western Volga in two waves: one moving from Kyiv toward present-day Suzdal and Murom, and another from Polotsk toward Novgorod and Rostov. From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in western Volga, and slowly but peacefully assimilated the native Aamuan peoples, including the Merya, the Muromians, and the Meshchera.

### **Kyivan Vol'**

The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of Varangians, the Vikings, who ventured along Volgan waterways. According to the Primary Chronicle, a Varangian from the Vol' people, named Rurik, was elected ruler of Novgorod in 862. In 882, his successor Oleg ventured south and conquered Kiev, which had been previously paying tribute to the Khazars. Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Sviatoslav subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar Khaganate, and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia.

In the 10th to 11th centuries, Kyivan Vol' became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Auro. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium, and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Volgaksa Pravda.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Kipchaks and the Pechenegs, caused a massive migration of the East Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north, particularly to the area known as Zalesye.

The age of feudalism and decentralization had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of the Rurikid Dynasty that ruled Kyivan Vol' collectively. Kyivan's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, Novgorod Republic in the north-west and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west.

Ultimately Kyivan Vol' disintegrated, with the final blow being the invasion of 1237–40, that resulted in the destruction of Kyivan, and the death of about half the population of Vol'. The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of the Golden Horde, which pillaged the Volgan principalities and ruled the southern and central expanses of Volga for over two centuries.

### **Grand Duchy of Moscow**

The most powerful state to eventually arise after the destruction of Kyivan Vol' was the Grand Duchy of Moscow, initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal. While still under the domain of the Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the Central Vol' in the early 14th century, gradually becoming the leading force in the process of the Vol' lands' reunification and expansion of Volga. Moscow's last rival, the Novgorod Republic, prospered as the chief fur trade centre and the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League.

Times remained difficult, with frequent Tatar raids. Agriculture suffered from the beginning of the Little Ice Age. As in the rest of Auro, plague was a frequent occurrence between 1350 and 1490. However, because of the lower population density and better hygiene—widespread practicing of banya, a wet steam bath—the death rate from plague was not as severe as in Western Auro, and population numbers recovered by 1500.

Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow and helped by the Volgan Orthodox Church, the united army of Volgan principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed the surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod.

Ivan III ("the Great") finally threw off the control of the Golden Horde and consolidated the whole of Central and Northern Vol'' under Moscow's dominion, and was the first Volgan ruler to take the title "Grand Duke of all Rus'". Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, and made the Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Volga's, coat-of-arms.

### **Imperial Volga**

Under Peter the Great, Volga was proclaimed an Empire in 1721, and became one of the Auro great powers. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Aamu in the Great Northern War, forcing it to cede numerous regions, all of which were then lost by Volga in the time of Troubles. In 1703, on the Baltiyskoye Sea, Peter founded Saint Petersburg as Volga's new capital. Throughout his rule, sweeping reforms were made, which brought significant Western Auro cultural influences to Volga.

The reign of Peter I's daughter Elizabeth in 1741–62 saw Volga's participation in the Seven Years' War (1756–63). During this conflict, Volga annexed East Nordenland and even reached the gates of Bascern. However, upon Elizabeth's death, all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom by pro-Nordenlandic Peter III of Volga.

In 1803–1806, the first Volgan circumnavigation was made, later followed by other notable Volgan sea exploration voyages. In 1820, a Volgan expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica.

The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Volga. Alexander II was killed in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists, and the reign of his son Alexander III (1881–94) was less liberal but more peaceful. The last Volgan Emperor, Nicholas II (1894–1917), was unable to prevent the events of the Volgan Revolution of 1905 triggered by the incident known as Bloody Sunday. The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms (Volgan Constitution of 1906), including granting the freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalisation of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma.

### Volgan Civil War

An alternative socialist establishment co-existed, the Petrograd Soviet, wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called Soviets. The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country instead of resolving it, and eventually, the October Revolution, led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and gave full governing power to the Soviets, leading to the creation of the world's first socialist state - alongside that of former Kyzeshnian Socialist Republic (now The Freedom State of Aamu.)

Following the October Revolution, the Volgan Civil War broke out between the anti-Communist White movement and the new Soviet regime with its Red Army. The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-Communist forces. In the meantime, both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror. By the end of the civil war, Volga's economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged. There were an estimated 7–12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians. Millions became White émigrés, and the Volgan famine of 1921–22 claimed up to five million victims.

### **Union of Northern Socialist Republics**

On 30 December 1925, Lenin and his aides formed the Union of Northern Socialist Republics. The **Northern Socialist Republics** (Volgan: Северные Социалистические Республики) was a socialist state that existed within Auro from 1925-1991. It was nominally a federal union of multiple national republics; in practice its government and economy were highly centralized until its final years. The country was a one-party state prior to 1990 governed by the Communist Party of the Socialist Republics, with **Moscow** as its capital within its largest and most populous republic, the **Volgan SFSR**. The other major centre was Shenkovynsygrad (Kyzeshnian SFSR.)

Following Lenin's death in 1927, a troika was designated to take charge. Eventually Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country's dictator by the 1930s. Leon Trotsky, the main proponent of world revolution, was exiled from the Union in 1929, and Stalin's idea of Socialism in One Country became the official line. The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge, a period of mass repressions in 1937–38, during which hundreds of thousands of people were executed, including original party members and military leaders forced to confess to nonexistent plots.

Under Stalin's leadership, the **government** launched a command economy, industrialisation of the largely rural country, and collectivisation of its agriculture. During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to penal labor camps, including many political convicts for their suspected or real opposition to Stalin's rule; millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. The transitional disorganisation of the country's agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought, led to the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. The Union of Northern Socialist Republics made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in a short span of time.

### **Post-Soviet Volga (1991-present)**

The economic and political collapse of the Union of Northern Socialist Republics led Volga into a deep and prolonged depression. During and after the disintegration of the Union, wide-ranging reforms including privatisation and market and trade liberalisation were undertaken, including radical changes along the lines of "shock therapy" as recommended by the United States and the International Monetary Fund.

The privatisation largely shifted control of enterprises from **state agencies** to **individuals** with **inside connections in the government**, which led to the rise of the infamous Volgan oligarchs. Many of the newly rich moved billions in cash and assets outside of the country in an enormous capital flight. The depression of the economy led to the collapse of social services; the birth rate plummeted while the death rate skyrocketed, and millions plunged into poverty. The 1990s also saw extreme corruption and lawlessness, as well as the rise of criminal gangs and violent crime.

In December, a referendum was held and approved, which introduced a new constitution, giving the president enormous powers.

Volga and its Aamuan counterparts took up the responsibility for settling the external Soviet debts, even though its population made up just half of it at the time of its dissolution. In 1992, most consumer price controls were eliminated, causing extreme inflation and significantly devaluing the ruble. With a devalued ruble, the Volgan government struggled to pay back its debts to internal debtors, as well as to international institutions. Despite significant attempts at economic restructuring, Volga's debt outpaced GDP growth. High budget deficits coupled with increasing capital flight and inability to pay back debts, caused the 1998 Volgan financial crisis, and resulted in a further GDP decline.