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Title H story, Religion, and Tradition A t 6.6 million square miles (17.1 million square km), Russia is by far the largest nation on earth. Its sheer size brings it into close proximity with a variety of lands and cultures, from China and Mongolia in the southeast to Finland in the northwest. Such breadth has assured it a prominent place in world affairs for centuries, with a dramatic history that encompasses periods of empire, war, and revolution. The origins of modern Russia can be traced to the East Slavs, a migratory group that began to inhabit areas of present-day western Russia in the early centuries of the first millennium bce . The East Slavs remain relatively obscure to historians, as they lacked a written language and thus a way to track their

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CHAPTER ONE: HISTORY, RELIGION, AND TRADITION