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Concept
Russians
Summary
The Russians (russkiye) are an East Slavic ethnic group indigenous to Eastern Europe, who share a common Russian ancestry, culture, and history. Russian, the most spoken Slavic language, is the shared mother tongue of the Russians; Orthodox Christianity has been their majority religion since the formation of a Russian identity in the Middle Ages. They are the largest Slavic nation and the largest European nation.
The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'. Genetically, the majority of Russians are very similar to their East Slavic counterparts, unlike Northern Russians, who belong to the Northern European Baltic gene pool. The Russian word for the Russians is derived from the people of Rus' and the territory of Rus'. The Russians share many historical and cultural traits with other European peoples, and especially with other East Slavic ethnic groups, specifically Belarusians and Ukrainians.
Of the total 258 million speakers of Russian in the world, about 135 million of them are ethnic Russians. The vast majority of Russians live in native Russia, but notable minorities are scattered throughout other post-Soviet states such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. A large Russian diaspora (sometimes including Russian-speaking non-Russians), estimated at around 25 million people, has developed all over the world, with notable numbers in the United States, Germany, Brazil, and Canada.
The standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is "Russians" in English. There are two Russian words which are commonly translated into English as "Russians". One is "русские" (russkie), which in modern Russia most often means "ethnic Russians". Another is "россияне" (rossiyane), which denotes "Russian citizens", regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation.
The name of the Russians derives from the early medieval Rus' people, a group of Norse merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and founded a state centred on Novgorod that later became Kievan Rus'.
Official source
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