Today, the existing communist states in the world are in China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam. These communist states often do not claim to have achieved socialism or communism in their countries but to be building and working toward the establishment of socialism in their countries.

Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Communist Party.

The government of the Soviet Union followed an unofficial policy of state atheism, aiming to gradually eliminate religious belief within its borders. While it never officially made religion illegal, the state nevertheless made great efforts to reduce the prevalence of religious belief within society.

Religion in Russia is diverse with Christianity, especially Russian Orthodoxy being the most widely professed faith, but with significant minorities of non-religious people and adherents of other faiths.

According to international human rights organizations and independent domestic media outlets, the following were among the common violations of human rights in Russia: deaths in custody, and the widespread and systematic torture of persons in custody by police, security forces and prison guards; hazing or dedovshchina …

The Russian constitution provides for freedom of speech and press; however, government application of law, bureaucratic regulation, and politically motivated criminal investigations have forced the press to exercise self-censorship constraining its coverage of certain controversial issues, resulting in infringements of …

List of presidents

Name	Term of office	Length of term
Boris Yeltsin	1991–1999	8 years, 174 days
Vladimir Putin (1st and 2nd terms)	1999–2008	8 years, 128 days
Dmitry Medvedev	2008–2012	4 years, 0 days
Vladimir Putin (3rd and 4th terms)	2012–present	8 years, 315 days

Russia

Russian Federation Российская Федерация (Russian) Rossiyskaya Federatsiya
• Last amendments	4 July 2020
Area
• Total	km2 (6,612,073 sq mi) (including Crimea) (1st)
• Water (%)	13 (including swamps)

The traditional start-date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus’ state in the north in 862 ruled by Vikings. Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became the first major cities of the new union of immigrants from Scandinavia with the Slavs and Finno-Ugrians.

As we have just discovered, Russia is geographically divided into two parts: European Russia and Asian Russia. Asian Russia consists of Western Siberia, Eastern Siberia and the Far East.

Europe

Moscow

Russia is known all over the world for its thinkers and artists, including writers like Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and ballet dancers like Rudolf Nureyev.

Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven regions are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.

Amerigo Vespucci

Asia

Because of its central location on its tectonic plate Australia doesn’t have any active volcanic regions, the only continent with this distinction. The lands were joined with Antarctica as part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana until the plate began to drift north about 96 million years ago.

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world’s sixth-largest country by total area….Australia.

Commonwealth of Australia
Internet TLD	.au

Greenland

In Australia, “Australasia” is considered to be Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and the neighbouring islands of Melanesia. In New Zealand, it means Australia, the Australian external territories, New Zealand, and the associated states and dependent territories of New Zealand.

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• Australia.
• Fiji.
• Guam.
• New Zealand.
• Papua New Guinea.
• Samoa.
• Solomon Islands.
• Tonga.

Oceania

8222 islands

In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman named his ‘first sighted land’ after his Dutch superior Anthony Van Diemen. While Tasman missed meeting any Aborigines, they knew their land as ‘Trowunna’, ‘Trowenna’ or ‘Loetrouwitter’. Despite the official name of Van Diemen’s Land, usage of the alternative ‘Tasmania’ gradually grew.

Kangaroo Island

The main island of Sri Lanka has an area of 65,268 km2 – it’s the twenty-fifth largest island of the world by area. Dozens of offshore islands account for the remaining 342 km2 area….List of islands of Sri Lanka.

Island	Mannar
District	Mannar
Divisional Secretariat	Mannar Town
Coordinates	9°03′10″N E
Area (km2)	126.46

The main island of Sri Lanka has an area of 65,268 km2; it is the twenty-fifth largest island of the world by area. Dozens of offshore islands account for the remaining 342 km2 area….Geography of Sri Lanka.

Native name: Nickname: Pearl of the Indian Ocean
Ethnic groups	Sinhalese – 75%, Sri Lanka Tamils – 16%, Sri Lankan Moors 9%

The British Ceylon period is the history of Sri Lanka between 1815 and 1948. It follows the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom into the hands of the British Empire. It ended over 2300 years of Sinhalese monarchy rule on the island. The British rule on the island lasted until 1948 when the country regained independence.

Prince Vijaya