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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

I

USSIA is not a country, but a continent, extending for thousands of miles in one uninterrupted expanse (except for the break of the Ural Mountains) from Central Europe to the Far East, and from the ice-bound wastes of the White Sea to the sub-tropical shores of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Russia is not a nation, but a bewildering conglomerate of nations, speaking every language—Polish, Finnish, Roumanian, Swedish, German—professing every form of religion—Pagan, Buddhist, Mahometan, Greek