Calathrinan Empire

The Calathrinan Empire, also known as Calathrina, is a country in northern Eurasia. It is an aboslute semi-parilamentary empire with 9 Governornates, 15 Imperial Districts, and two semi-autonomous divisions (the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Kingdom of Poland). The Empire is bordered by Norway, Sweeden, the Independent Kingdom in Poland, the Slavic States, Romania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan (by the Sea of Okhotsk) and the United States (by the Bering Strait).

At 22 million kilometers, Calathrina is by far the largest country in the world, covering more then a sixth of the Earth's total land area. Calathrina is also the third most populous nation on Earth with 660 million inhabitants. It extends across the whole of northern and central Asia and more then 46% of Europe, spanning 14 time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Calathrina has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is considered an energy superpower. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.

Calathrina has the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and also the world's largest military budget. It is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

Calathrina is a permanent member of the World Assembly Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Eurasian Economic Community, and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Monarchies. The Calathrinan nation has a long tradition of excellence in every aspect of the arts and sciences, as well as a strong tradition in technology, including such significant achievements as the first human spaceflight.

Geography


Calathrina is the largest county in the world, covering 22,400,000 square kilometres, or about 1/6th of the earth's landmass; it has no rival in size. As with its topography, Calathrina's climates, vegetation, and soils span vast distances. The country contains 43 WAESCO World Heritage Sites, 49 WAESCO Biosphere reserves, 48 National Parks and 106 nature reserves. Calathrina has a wide natural resource base, including major deposits of timber, petroleum, natural gas, coal, ores and other mineral resources.

Topography
The two widest separated points in Calathrina are about 8,000 km (4,971 mi) apart along a geodesic line. These points are: the area between Calathrinan Belarus and the Kingdom of Poland, and also the spit of land streching from Calathrinan Lithuania to northeastern Royal Poland; and the farthest southeast of the Kuril Islands, a few miles off Hokkaidō Island, Japan. The points which are furthest separated in longitude are 6,600 km (4,101 mi) apart along a geodesic. These points are: in the west, the same spit; in the east, the Big Diomede Island (Ostrov Ratmanova). The Calathrinan Empire spans 14 time zones. With access to three of the world's oceans — the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific — Calathrinan fishing fleets are a major contributor to the world's fish supply. The Caspian is the source of what is considered one of the finest caviar in the world. Most of Calathrina consists of vast stretches of plains that are predominantly steppe to the south and heavily forested to the north, with tundra along the northern coast. Calathrina possesses 38% of the world's arable land. Mountain ranges are found along the southern borders, such as the Caucasus (containing Mount Elbrus, which at 5,642 m (18,510 ft) is the highest point in both Calanthrina and Europe) and the Altai; and in the eastern parts, such as the Verkhoyansk Range or the volcanoes on Kamchatka. The Ural Mountains, rich in mineral resources, form a north-south range that divides Europe and Asia. Calathrina has an extensive coastline of over 37,000 km (22,991 mi) along the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, as well as along the Baltic Sea, Sea of Azov, Black and Caspian seas.

The Barents Sea, White Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea, Chukchi Sea, Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, and the Sea of Japan are linked to Calathrina via the Arctic and Pacific oceans. Calathrina's major islands and archipelagos include: Novaya Zemlya, the Franz Josef Land, the Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands, and Sakhalin. The Diomede Islands (one controlled by Calathrina, the other by the United States) are just 3 km (1.9 mi) apart, and Kunashir Island is about 20 km (12.4 mi) from Hokkaidō.

Calathrina has tens of thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water, providing it with one of the world's largest surface water resources. The largest and most prominent of Calathrina's bodies of fresh water is Lake Baikal, the world's deepest, purest, oldest and most capacious freshwater lake. Lake Baikal alone contains over one fifth of the world's fresh surface water. Other major lakes include Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, two of the largest lakes in Europe, as well as Lake Bakialish, the world's only lake located in a desert. Calathrina is second only to Brazil in volume of total renewable water resources, and by 2012 is expected to superpass it in these terms. Of the country's 130,000 rivers, the Volga is the most famous, not only because it is the longest river in Europe, but also because of its major role in Calanthrian history.

Climate
The climate of the Calathrinan Empire formed under the influence of several determining factors. The enormous size of the country and the remoteness of many areas from the sea result in the dominance of the humid continental and subarctic climate, which is prevalent in European and Asian Calathrina except for the tundra and the extreme southeast. Mountains in the south obstruct the flow of warm air masses from the Indian Ocean, whilst the plain of the west and north makes the country open to Arctic and Atlantic influences.

Throughout much of the territory there are only two distinct seasons — winter and summer; spring and autumn are usually brief periods of change between extremely low temperatures and extremely high. The coldest month is January (February on the shores of the sea), the warmest usually is July. Great ranges of temperature are typical. In winter, temperatures get colder both from south to north and from west to east. Summers can be quite hot and humid, even in Siberia, but mainly in Central Asia and near Turkey and Iran. A small part of the Black Sea coast around Sochi has a subtropical climate. The continental interiors are the driest areas.

Flora and fauna


From north to south the East European Plain, also known as Calathrinan Plain, is clad sequentially in Arctic tundra, coniferous forest (taiga), mixed and broad-leaf forests, grassland (steppe), and semi-desert (fringing the Caspian Sea), as the changes in vegetation reflect the changes in climate. Siberia supports a similar sequence but largely is taiga. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, known as "the lungs of Europe", second only to the Amazon Rainforest in the amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs.

There are 286 mammal species and 799 bird species in Calathrina. A total of 1,115 animal species have been included in the Red Data Book of the Calanthrinan Empire as of 1997 and are now protected.

Early history


The earliest Human bones date from around 65,000 years ago. It was found along the Don river banks. During prehistoric times, the vast steppes of southern and western modern-day Calathrina was inhabited by nomadic travelers. During the times of the Greek States and Roman Empire, Calathrina was known as Unkonkius Landica en Eastinum, or literally Unknown Lands in the East.

Remnants of these steppe civilizations were discovered in such places as Ipatovo, Sintashta, Arkaim, and Pazyryk, which bear the earliest known traces of mounted warfare, a key feature in nomadic way of life. In the latter part of the 8th century BC, Greek traders brought classical civilization to the trade emporiums in Tanais and Phanagoria.

Between the third and sixth centuries BC, the Bosporan Kingdom, a Hellenistic polity which succeeded the Greek colonies, was overwhelmed by successive waves of nomadic invasions, led by warlike tribes, such as the Huns and Turkic Avars. A Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled the lower Volga basin steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas until the 8th century.

The ancestors of modern Calathrinans are the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes. Moving into the lands vacated by the migrating Germanic tribes, the Early East Slavs gradually settled Western Calathrina in two waves: one moving from Kiev 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 Calathrina and slowly but peacefully assimilated the native Finno-Ugric tribes, including the Merya, the Muromians, and the Meshchera.

Kievan Vargania
In the 9th century, the state of Kievan Vargania, located in Kiev, was established, becoming the predesscor to the Kingdom in Calathrina, and is argubly the first state to encompass a sizeable area of Calathrina. Scandinavian Norsemen, called "Vikings" in Western Europe and "Varangians" in the East, combined piracy and trade in their roamings over much of Europe. In the mid-9th century, they ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas.

According to the earliest Calathrinan chronicle, a Varangian from the Kiev' people, named Rurik, was elected ruler (konung or knyaz) of Novgorod in 862. His successor Oleg the Prophet moved his operations south and conquered Kiev in 882, which had been previously dominated by the Khazars; so the state of Kievan Vargania started. Oleg, Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Svyatoslav subsequently subdued all East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar khaganate and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium.

In the 10th to 11th centuries Kievan Vargania became the largest and most prosperous state in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav I 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 Calantakya 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 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 princely family that ruled the Koungdom collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, Novgorod in the north-west and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west.

Ultimately Vargania disintegrated, with the final blow being the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240, that resulted in the destruction of Kiev and the death of about a half of total population of Kiev's. The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of the Golden Horde, which pillaged the Calathrinan principalities and ruled the southern and central expanses of Calathrina for over three centuries, impeding the country's economic and social development.

Galicia-Volhynia was eventually assimilated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while the Mongol-dominated Vladimir-Suzdal-Calathrina and the independent Novgorod Republic, two regions on the periphery of Kiev, established the basis for the modern Calathrinan nation. The Novgorod Republic together with Pskov retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke and were largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the country. Led by Alexander Nevsky, Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva in 1240, as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle of the Ice in 1242, breaking their attempts to colonize the Northern Kiev's.

Grand Duchy of Moscow-Calathrina
The most powerful successor state to Kievan Vargania was the Grand Duchy of Moscow-Calathrina, initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal-Calathrina. While still under the domain of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in Western Calathrina in the early 14th century.

Assisted by the Calathrinan Orthodox Church and Saint Sergius of Radonezh's spiritual revival, under the leadership of Prince Dmitri Donskoy of Moscow, the united army of Calathrinan principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). Moscow gradually absorbed the surrounding principalities, including eventually the strong rivals, such as Tver and Novgorod, and thus became the main leading force in the process of Calathrina's reunification and expansion.

Ivan III (Ivan the Great) finally threw off the control of the Tatar invaders, consolidated the whole of Central and Northern Vargania under Moscow's dominion, and was the first to take the title "grand duke of all the Calathrinas". After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Calathrina claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. 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 Calathrinan, coat-of-arms.

Kingdom of Calathrina
To assume his authority and confirm Calathrina as the sucesscor of Rome, the Grand Duke Ivan IV (the Terrible) was offically crowned the first King of Calathrina in 1547, thus forming the predessscor of the modern state, the Kingdom of Calanthrina. The King progmulated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Calathrinan feudal representative body (Zemsky Sobor) and introduced local self-management into the rural regions.

During his long reign, King Ivan IV nearly doubled his already large Calathrinan territory by annexing the three remaining Tatar khanates (parts of the disintergrated Golden Horde), the Khanates of Kazania and Astrakhana along the Volga, and the Khanate of Sibir in southwestern Siberia. Thus by the end of the 16th century Calathrina was transformed into a multiethnic, multiconfessional and transcontinental state, which it remains to this day, ableit larger.

In contrast to these great achievements in the East, Ivan IV's policy in the West brought quite disastrous results. The Calathrinan state was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade. At the same time Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, the only remaining successor to the Golden Horde, continued to invade Southern Calathrina in a series of slave raids, and were even able to burn down Moscow in 1571.

The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurikid Dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the famine of 1601–1603, led to the civil war, the rule of pretenders and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 1600s. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth occupied parts of Calathrina, including Moscow. In 1612 the Poles were forced to retreat by the Calathrinan volunteer corps, led by two national heroes: Kuzma Minin, a pioneering merchant, and Prince Pozharsky, a man of military skill. A new dynasty, the Alexandrovs, acceded the throne in 1613 by the decision of Zemsky Sobor, and Calathrina started its gradual recovery from the crisis. They have remained on the throne since then. Calathrina continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of Cossacks. Cossacks were warriors organized into military communities, resembling pirates and pioneers of the New World. In 1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks in rebellion against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, because of the social and religious oppression they suffered under Polish rule. In 1654 the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Calathrinan King, Aleksey I. Aleksey's acceptance of this offer led to a protracted war between Poland and Calathrina. Finally, Ukraine was split along the river Dnieper, leaving the western part (or Left-bank Ukraine) under Polish rule and eastern part (Right-bank Ukraine and Kiev) under Calathrinan. Soon after that, in 1670-71 the Don Cossacks led by Stenka Razin initiated a major Cossack and peasant uprising in the Volga region, but the King's troops were successful in defeating the rebels.

In the east, the rapid Calathrinan exploration and colonisation of the huge territories of Siberia was led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Calathrinan explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian river routes, and by the mid-17th century there were Calathrinan settlements in the Eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the Pacific coast. In 1648 the Bering Strait between Asia and North America was passed for the first time by the expedition of Fedot Popov and Semyon Dezhnev.

Early days of the Empire
Under Peter I (Peter the Great), Calathrina was proclaimed an Empire in 1721, and it recieved it's first constitution in 1722. It soon became recognized as a world power. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, forcing it to cede West Karelia and Ingria (two regions lost by Calathrina in the Time of Troubles), Estland, and Livland, securing Calathrina's access to the sea and sea trade. On the Baltic Sea Peter founded a new capital called Saint Cathinburg, now popuarly known as Calathrina's Window to Europe. Peter's reforms brought considerable Western European cultural influences to Calathrina.

The reign of Peter I's daughter Elisabeth in 1741–1762 saw Calathrina's participation in the Seven Years War (1756 – 1763), sometimes called the first actual World War. During this conflict the Empire was able to annex Eastern Prussia for a while, and even take Berlin once, however upon Elisabeth's death all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom of Prussia by pro-Prussian Peter III of Calathrina. Catherine II (Catherine the Great), who ruled from 1762 to 1796, continued the efforts to establish Calanthrina as one of the Great Powers of Europe. She extended Calathrinan political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and incorporated most of the Commonwealth territories into Calathrina during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Calathrinan frontier westward into Central Europe.

In the south, after successful Calathrinan-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire, Catherine advanced Calathrina's boundary to the Black Sea, defeating the Crimean khanate. As a result of victories over the Ottomans, by the early 19th century Calathrina also had made significant territorial gains in Transcaucasia. This continued with Alexander I's (1801-1825) wresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812. It was during his reign, in 1808, that Calathrina abolished serfdom-slavery.

At the same time, in the second half of the 18th century and in the first half of the 19th, the Empire colonised New Calathrina (now New Canada) and even founded some settlements in California, like Fort Ross. In 1803-1806 the first Calathrinan circumnavigation was made, followed during the 19th century by the other notable Calathrinan sea exploration voyages. In 1820 the Calathrinan expedition discovered the Antarctic continent.

In alliance with Prussia and Austria, Calathrina fought against Napoleon's France. Napoleon's invasion of Calathrina at the height of his power in 1812 failed miserably as the obstinate Calathrinan resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Calathrinan winter dealt him a disastrous defeat, in which more than 95% of his invading force perished. Led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly, the Calathrinan army ousted Napoleon from the country and drove through Europe as a part of the Sixth Coalition, finally entering Paris.

Emperor Alexander I headed the Empire's delegation at the Congress of Vienna that defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe. The officers of the Napoleonic Wars brought ideas of liberalism back to Calathrina with them and even attempted to severely downscale the emperor's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825, which was followed by several decades of political repression.

The conservative policies of Nicholas I (1825-1855), impeded the development of Calathrina in the mid-nineteenth century, when a zenith period of Calathrina's power and influence in Europe was disrupted by defeat in the Crimean War. Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) enacted significant reforms, including the reformation of the judical system in 1864; these Great Reforms spurred industrialization and modernized the Calathrinan army, which had successfully liberated Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1877-1878 Calathrinan-Turkish War. Under him, Calathrina became the second most powerful country in the world.

However, many socio-economic conflicts were aggravated during Alexander III’s reign (1881-1894). He mistreated Jews and nearly destoryed the state effiency. The reign of his son Nicholas II (1894-1920) reversed Alexander III's policies, sped up industralization, introduced Calathrina's current constitution, and built up a extensive welfare and educational state. In 1905, the Great Celebrations happened, commerating the Emperor's achievements.

In 1914, Calathrina entered World War I in response to Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on it's ally Serbia. Calathrinan forces were highly sucesssfull, destorying the Austro-Hungarian army during the Bruislov Offfensive in 1916 and also preventing the Germans from attacking Calathrina's own borders. Calathrina even sucessfully intruded on German forts in East Prussia and captured Gallica from Austria in 1917.

In 1918, the Austrians and Germans lost the Battle of Vittero Venetto and the Battle of Saxony, and were forced to surrender. Calathrina asked for Gallica and most of German Poland, payments of money from Germany and Austria, breaking up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the insured dominiance of it's ally Serbia in the Balkans, territorial concessions for Romania, and a series of military disarments among it's defeated enemies. On 8 October 1919, Vladmir Lenin became Prime Minister of Calathrina, and would expand Calathrina's welfare state.

20th Century Calathrina
Throughout the 20s, Prime Minister Lenin, with the support of Emperor Alexei II of Calathrina, expanded Calathrina's welfare state, introduced new regulations on the banking system, and reorganized the Calathrinan credit and stocks system. The Imperial Parilament passed all these. Lenin also reorganized taxes, removing the burden from the poor and middle-class. He also reorganized military funding and his careful spending plans created eight budget surpluses and little to no debt throughout the decade.

On 17 June 1929, Lenin died, and the Emperor appointed Lenin and his' friend, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Duma, as Prime Minister. Stalin continued Lenin's regulation policies, helped develop the factories and resources of the country, and improved the conditions of the rural areas. While the Great Depression attacked most of the world, Calathrina remained uneffected from the Depression's effects, thanks to it's regulated stock market, taxing and credit policies, welfare state, and rural development programs.

In 1933, in Germany, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party came into power, sworn enemies of the Calathrinan Empire and proponents of external agression and racial seregation. The Calathrinan foreign policy was changed to face this threat. Calathrina started the re-building of it's forces in 1934, strengthened the border with the Polish Republic, and began to renew it's alliance with France and Britain, who declined their offer. The Appeasement policy of Great Britain and France towards Hitler's annextions of Ruhr, Austria and finally of Czechoslovakia (following the Munich agreement of 1938) enlarged the might of Nazi Germany and put a threat of war to the Calathrinan Empire. Around the same time the German Reich allied with the Japanese Empire, a rival of Calathrina on the Far East and an open enemy in the Calathrinan–Japanese Border Wars in 1938-1939, which was narrowly won by Calathrina.

In August of 1939, after another failure of talks with Britain and France, the Calathrinan government agreed to conclude the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Germany, pledging non-aggression between the two countries and also putting the Polish Republic, Norway, Sweeden, and the Slavic States in Germany's sphere of influence. Calathrina would retain it's Eastern European areas. Thus, while Hitler conquered the Polish Republic, France, the Low Countries, and Norway on one front, Calathrina put more military positions and fortifcations in it's western territories and gained one and a half more years of peace. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany broke the non-aggression treaty and invaded Calathrina with the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history, opening the largest theater of the Second World War. Although the German army had considerable success early on, their onslaught was halted in the Battle of Moscow, where the government was headquartered for the duration of the war. Subsequently the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Volograd in the winter of 1942–1943, and then in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. Another German failure was the battle of St. Cathinburg, the capital, in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941–44 by German forces, suffering starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendering.

Under Alexei II's administration and the leadership of such prominent commanders as Georgy Zhukov and Konstantin Rokossovsky, Calathrinan forces drove through Eastern Europe in 1944–45 and captured Berlin in May of 1945. After marking this by the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945, the Calathrinan Army ousted the Japanese from China's Manchukuo and North Korea, contributing to the allied victory over Japan.

The 1941–1945 period of World War II is known in Calathrina as the Great Patriotic War. In this conflict, which included many of the most lethal battle operations in human history, Calathrinan military and civilian deaths were 40.6 million and 55.9 million respectively, accounting for about a third of all World War II casualties. The Calathrinan economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation but the Empire emerged as the world's most powerful country, a superpower. The Imperial Army occupied the eastern part of Germany, the Balkans Pennisula, Romania, Poland, and Norway during the late 40s. Within these areas, the Empire established for them new governments: the Independent Monarchy in Poland (the territory of the former Polish Republic), the Kingdom of East Germany (which reunited with the Constitutional Republic of West Germany in 1990 to become the Constitutional Kingdom of Germany), the Grand Duchy of Austria and Lichenstein (shortened to Duchy of Austria in 1990) the Kingdom of Smaller Hungary (later shortened to Kingdom of Hungary in 1990), the Kingdom of Czechlovakia, the Constitutional State of Slovakia, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia and Hergenovina, Monterergo, Serbia, Macedonia), the State of Albania, the Kingdom of Greece, the Kingdom of Smaller Bulgaria, and the Kingdom of Greater Romania. Slovenia was given to Italy as Italian Slovenia. Relatives of the Calathrinan Emperor's Alexandroich Dynasty were made kings, dukes, or high lords of these countries (and their heirs are still are and always will be). Becoming the world's FIRST nuclear weapons power, having completed their first one in May 1945, narrowly beating the US, Calathrina established the Warshaw Pact alliance and entered into a period of tension with the United States during the Cold War, that lasted into the 50s. After both Stalin and Alexei II died in 1953, Alexander, Crown Prince of Calathrina, became Alexander IV, Emperor of Calathrina. Alexander IV ended the Cold War by reducing Calathrina's nuclear weapons program, withdrawing support for Communist China and Cuba, and also by negotating a series of economic and politcal deals with the United States. Emperor Alexander improved Calathrina's domestic affairs, by completing Alexei II's recovery efforts of devestated areas after World War II, and also by initating Stalin's plan of reorganizing the military command of the country. Alexander IV also supported the flagging space program, reorganizing it into the Imperial Space and Astronomy Program (ISAP) in 1954. Under his efforts, Calathrina heavily funded this program, and in 1957 Calathrina launched the first man-made satelitte, Sputnik, and the Calathrinan cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to orbit the Earth aboard the first manned spacecraft, Vostok 1. Yuri was later awarded the Honor of Service metal by Alexander IV for his achievements, becoming Count Yuri Gagarin of Turkestan, and also appointed a Honorary Marshal. Some new tensions with the United States heightened when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Calathrinan missiles in Cuba. However, Prime Minister Nikitia Khruschev, who had managed Alexander IV's domestic and foreign projects, was able to peacefully solve the conflicts, even visiting with President Kennedy in 1962.

Following the resignation of Khruschev in 1964 due to health, Alexander IV appointed Leonid Brezhnev, a Liberal, as Prime Minister. Brezhnev reduced the production of military supplies and equipment, promoting the production of consumer goods, and also stablizing Calathrinan oil prices. Under him, Calathrina sent aid to the Kingdom of Czechlovakia when the Czechs faced a rebellion in 1975. Brezhnev also improved relations with the United States, by signing a reduction in nuclear arms treaty and also agreeing to respect American control in the Western Hemisphere. In return, the Americans stopped supporting the Republican rebels in Vietnam and agreed to give maritime rights to Calathrina around New Canada.

In 1979, the Emirate of Afghanistan requested a Calathrinan intervention to stop the Republican rebellions there. Calathrina, sensing the intervention would drain economic resources and recieve no firm results, refused, and by 1989, the Emirate had fallen. Into the 80s, relations with the United States once more declined, but when Mikhail Gorbachev became Prime Minister in 1985, he quickly improved relations with the United States, meeting with President Ronald Reagan at Iceland in 1985, Norway in 1986, and in Calathrina itself in 1987. They drew up a plan of coordination and ironically, became best friends. Gorbachev would later attend Reagan's state funeral in the US in 2004, while Reagan would award Gorbachev the Presidential Award in 1988.

In June 1991, Gorbachev was removed by Alexander IV, replaced with Boris Yelstin, the governor of Main Calathrina, who began a program to expand the economy. That year, Alexander IV died and was replaced by his son Alexei III, who worked closely with Prime Minister Yelstin.

Today's Calathrina
Throughout the 90s, Prime Minister Yelstin encouraged foreign subsides, tripling foreign ownership of Calathrinan companies, and relaxing regulations. His policies also removed price controls, causing the economy to bundle during this time. In 1995, Alexei III dismissed Yelstin for his unsucessfull economic efforts, reimposing price controls, but at the same time still encouraging foreign subsides.

Today, increasing domestic demand, investments, and higher wages have helped Calathrina's economy grow and thrive nine years straight. Recently, Calathrina has increased military funding, and it's miltary and politcal power far superpasses that of the US.

Government and administration
The Calathrinan Empire is a sort of semi-parilamentary aboslute monarchy. The Imperial Constitution, first issued in 1906, has gone through a process of evolution. The Emperor is supreme administrator and head of state, and his chief minister, the Prime Minister, is head of the government. The following shall go into the government and administration of the Empire.

The emperor
see also: Calathrinan Emperor The Calathrinan Emperor is the supreme administrator and head of state of the Empire. The Emperor commands the Military, appoints, supervises, and dismisses ministers and government officals and judges, heads the Council of Ministers, summons, consults, supervises, and dismisses the parilament at will, orders elections, lays parilamentary agenda, approves, changes, repeals, and initates laws. Proclamations, decrees, edicts, orders, reports, charters, and authorizations are issued, approved, changed, repealed, and initated by the emperor at will. All laws are proposed, debated, and passed in the emperor's name. The emperor is also cermonial leader and symbol of the country. The emperor must be a member of the Calathrinan Orthodox Church and follow the Imperial Laws of Succession as enacted by Paul I in 1798 and amended by Nicholas II in 1905.

The Emperor also appoints and dismisses the prime minister at will. The Prime Minister is responsbile and held accountable to the Emperor, and not to the Parilament. The Prime Minister advises the Emperor and heads the government day-to-day.

The parilament
see also: Calathrinan Parilament

The Calathrinan Parilament consists of two houses, the upper house the Calathrinan State Council, with half of it's members appointed and dismissed by the emperor at will, and the Calathrinan Duma, elected through a universal private ballot.

Calathrinan State Council
The State Council of the Empire is the upper house of the Calathrinan Parilament, with the Duma as the lower house. The emperor excrises the legislative power usually in concert with the Parilament.

The State Council consists of 100 members, half of which are elected, half appointed and dismissed by the emperor. As a legislative body the Council approves all Duma laws, coordinates the budget, and handles military funding; the legislation it has passed mainly deals with economic and military manners.

Calathrinan Imperial Duma
The Duma of the Empire consistutes the lower house of the parilament. It has 442 members elected in the following manner: each Governorate in the Empire returns a certain amount of delegates, depending on population. The City and District of St. Cathinsburg and the Grand Duchy of Finland and Kingdom of Calathrinan Poland also return delegates. Each delegate is taken from a electoral district and is elected by all voters aged eighteen and upwards, through a secret universal ballot. The candiate with the most popular votes in each district becomes that district's delegate. The votes are then confirmed by a electoral college appointed and dismissed by each governorate. The cities of Saint Cathinburg, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Tblinsi, Ulbaantaar, Riga, Vilnus, Minsk, Warshaw, Lodz, and Krakow elect their delegates personally, but use the same voting system.

The Duma organizes the Imperial budget, approves the military plans of the Council, proposes and changes laws, supervises the Bureaucracy, and manages government supervision of governorates.

Imperial Ministries
The Imperial Ministries are the Council and collection of Ministries that advise the Emperor on matters of government and state, run the Empire day-to-day, issue proclamations and decrees in his name, and manage the military. The minstries are:


 * Ministry for the Court


 * Ministry of Foreign Affairs


 * Ministry of Finance and Treasury


 * Ministry of Defense


 * Ministry of National Security


 * Ministry of Energy


 * Ministry of Interior and Natural Resources


 * Ministry of Commerce and Labor


 * Ministry of Health and Human Services


 * Ministry of Housing and Urban Development


 * Ministry of Transportation


 * Ministry of Education and Families

Holy Synod
The Holy Synod is the supreme organ of the Calathrinan Orthodox Church. It is presided over by a church procurator, who repersents the emperor in the Church. The three bishops of Moscow, the bishop of Kiev, the nine bishops of Saint Cathinburg, the archbishop of Transcaucasia, and the bishops from Siberia and Central Asia sit on the Synod.

Administrative Divisions of the Empire
The Empire is divided into nine Governorates, fifteen Imperial Districts, and two-semi autonomous territories. The Governorates are Main Calathrina, Calathrinan Mongolia, Calathrinan Turkestan, Transcacausia, Ukraine, Beershabia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Saint Cathinburg, Riga, Vilnus, Warshaw, Lodz, Krakow, Minsk, Kiev, Odessa, Moscow, Nitzy Novograd, Yekterinburg, Vladvostok, Ulaanbataar, and Tblinsi are the Imperial Districts. The two semi autonomous territories are the Grand Duchy of Finland, which encompasses Finland, and Congress Poland, encompassing most of Poland, more specfically the eastern and southeastern regions.

Each Governorate in the Empire is led (as it's name implies) by a Governor, appointed and dismissed by the emperor at will. The governor heads the provincal administration, issues local decrees and proclamations, and supervises the Council of Officals, a set of commissioners who run the governorate's internal affairs. Each Governor has two deputies, who maintain legislative order and become Governor in order of seniority if the governor dies, resigns, is in unstable condition, or removed.

The Imperial Districts are also led by a Governor, elected through universal ballot and confirmed by the emperor. The Governors heads the District, issues city ordinances, and chairs the Legislative Authorities, who are responsible for city transportation, health and welfare services, local government, taxes, and the economy.

The two-semi autonomous territories (Poland and Finland) have their own governments, constitutions, judicaries, laws, and customs, but are de jure part of the Empire. The Calathrinan Emperor is also King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland.

Judical system
The current judicary of the Calathrinan Empire has existed, in a heavily reformed way, since the mid-19th century as Alexander II established. The system is based on these principles: the separation of the judicial and administrative functions, the independence of the judges and courts, the publicity of trials and oral procedure, the equality of all classes before the law. Each trial has a jury of five jurors, called up by the government from among regular civilians, and two expierenced justices.

Each city would have a Local Court; each County a Municpal Court; each Division a Provisional Court; then 10 national Appeals Courts; then finally, the Calathrinan State Court at the top of the branch.

City administration
There are three main organs who govern a city or a county. They have adminstrative functions. They are the following:


 * the assemblies of the poor


 * council of the wealthy and propertiors


 * a elected city duma of the wealthy, the workers, and the poor

Assemblies of Poor
The first of these are the Assemblies of the Poor. These consist of all people in each locality making less then $41,000 a year. They range from working poor to a family of poor to senior poor. The Assemblies of the Poor have control over their segments of the local population. They manage poor people's charities, control poor housing, fund the poor community, give pensions to the seniors in their community, and maintain their neighborhoods. The Assemblies usually meet in a government building in each locality's downtown.

Council of the Wealthy and Propiertors
The Council of the Wealthy and Properitors are made up of all people in a locality making more then $90,000 a year, or people who own various properties throughout the locality. These range from socalites to well-doing homeowners to company presidents. The Council jointly manage the estates and properties of the wealthy, organize their community, arrange socialite events and parties, and pass laws concerning the wealthy.

City Duma
Each locality has a City Duma, consisting of two houses, the City Council, appointed and dismissed by the city mayor at will, and the City Assembly, elected by all voters over 18 through a universal secret ballot. The Duma is the supreme legislative body over a locality. The City Council prepares the budget and funds local charities, projects, and parks, while a City Assembly executes the budget, passes laws about justice and the general community, and maintains oversight over neighborhoods. Each locality has a Mayor, elected by the Assembly through a two-thirds majority. The Mayor is head of the Council, cermonial figurehead, and leader of the Executive Administration.

Foreign relations
The Calathrinan Empire has a foreign policy of supporting nations that are peaceful and condemening those not. The Empire owns the Chinese Railroad Zone in Manchuria and has a nominal control of merchantry and government in the Chinese ports of Shanghai, Tianjin, Choungqing, and Shenyang. The Empire however is peaceful towards China and has even helped the Chinese build up their military. As of July 2009, the Empire has offical relations with 160 countries and more then 144 embassies. The foreign policy is formulated by the Emperor and executed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As one of five permanent members of the WA Security Council, Calathrina plays a major role in maintaining international peace and security. The country participates in the Quartet on the Middle East and the Six-party talks with North Korea. Calathrina is a member of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations, the Council of Europe, OSCE and APEC. Calathrina usually takes a leading role in regional organizations such as the CM, EurAsEC, CSTO, and the SCO. Former Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had advocated a strategic partnership with close integration in various dimensions including establishment of four common spaces between Calathrina and the EU. Since 1996, Calathrina has developed a friendlier, albeit volatile relationship with NATO. The NATO-Calathrina Council was established in 2002 to allow the 26 Allies and Calathrina to work together as equal partners to pursue opportunities for joint collaboration.

Military Forces
see also: Imperial Military



The Empire has many military assets, including training facilities and production factories in Central Asia, Siberia, and Ukraine, Port Arthur in China, the Calathrinan Naval Base in New Canada, as well forts and training facilities in Germany, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and England. The Imperial Military is divided into the Imperial Navy, Imperial Army, Imperial Air Force, Imperial Military Police, Imperial Marines, Imperial Coast Guard, and Medical Services. As of June 2007, the Empire has 45 million active military personnel and 15 million reserve soldiers.

Calathrina has the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. It also has the world's largest fleet of missle ballistic submarines and is the only country besides the US that has a modern stategic bomber force. Calathrina's tank force is the largest and most efficent in the world, it's navy is number one and it's air force is more organized then that of the US. The country has a large and native arms industry, producing all of it's military equipment and supplies. Calathrina is the world's largest exporter of arms, accounting for 50% of all arms sales. It gives arms to more then 80 countries, including China, Britain, France, and America.

It is mandatory for all male subjects between the ages of 18-27 to be drafted for a year of military service, and for all female subjects in the same age range to sign for a year's service in the medical and firefighting forces. The government plans to increase the number of contract servicemen by 70% before the year ends. Defense expenditure had quadrupled over the past six years, having just recently exceeded the United States in terms of military funding, totalling $980 billion devoted to the military. Currently the military is undergoing a equipment and size upgrade. Defense Minister Count Anatoliy Serdyukov, Count of Novograd, has said he wants the military to exceed China's in terms of size and Britain's in terms of organization. Estimates say that by 2015 the Calathrinan military will accomplish both goals.

Demographics
The Calathrinan Empire is a diverse, multi-ethic society, home to as many as 170 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. Though Calathrina's population is the third largest in the world, it's population denesity is low, because of it's massive territorial size. The majority of the population live in European Calathrina, Transcacausia, Central Asia, and south-western Siberia. About 73% of the population live in urban areas, compared to 27% living in rural areas. The population of Calathrina is 660,540,300 as of 1 January 2010.

The Emperor decreed in 2006 many regulations of immigriation, and thus it has dropped 20% since then. However, Calathrina's state-of-the art health system has caused death rates to decline, from a high of 54% in 1913 to 3.5% in 2007. Birth rates have risen from one among every ten women in 1913 to one among every woman in 2007.

Largest cities
The following are the largest cities in the Empire:

1. Saint Cathinburg

2. Moscow

3. Kiev

4. Warshaw

5. Minsk

6. Tblinssi

7. Perm

8. Omsk

9. Odessa

10. Yekarternburg

11. Vladivostok

12. Lodz

13. Krakow

14. Helenski

15. Riga

16. Vilnus

17. Talinin

18. Amady

19. Ulaanbataar

20. Christnau

Languages
Calathrina's ethnic groups speak some 130 languages. According to the 2002 census, about 360 million people speak Calathrinan. Calathrinan is the only offical state language, but Ukranian, Belarusian, Polish, Lithuanian, Finnish, Sweedish, and Arabic are offical languages on the local level.

Calathrinan is the most geographically spread language in the world and also the most widely used Slavic language. Calathrinan is one of six offical languages of the WA, and is also the third-most used language in business, after English and French. Calathrinan belongs to the Indo-European language family and forms the main core of the East Slavic languages (the others Belarusian and Ukranian).

Over a quarter of the world's scientfic liteature is published in Calathrinan. About 20-40% of all enclyopedias and dictionaries are written in Calathrinan.

Religion
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism are Calathrina's traditional religions, all four granted a special state status by a law of the Duma in 1997. All total, about 20% of Calathrinans practice these religions. Most Christians, especially Catholics, live in Poland and Lithuania. Islamic believers live in Central Asia, the Volga Region, and Trancacuasia. Most Buddhists live in Mongolia and southeastern Calathrina. Most Jews live in western Main Calathrina, Ukraine, eastern Belarus, and the Baltic region.

The dominant religion in Calathrina is Calathrinan Orthodoxy. 95% of all Orthodox parishes belong to the Calathrinan Orthodox Church, adminstered by the state-appointed Holy Synod led by a government procurator. The Church is widely respected by both believers and nonbelievers, both regarding it as the core of Calathrinan heritage and culture.

Less then one percent of all people in Calathrina are nonbelievers, people who do not belong to any religion or pray to God. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Church, with the support of the State, persceuted this small group, almost exterminating them entirely. A edict issued by Nicholas II in 1905 ended this state supported "purge" and granted special status to nonbelievers. Since then, the group has grown slowly, but has a powerful influence in government.

Health
Legislation gurantees free, universal health care for all citizens. Calathrina has more physicans, hospitals, and health care workers then most other countries in the world. The government insures the health of all. As of 2007, the average life expectancy was 84.5 years, 82.9 for women, and 80.9 for men. This is 6.5 years higher then that of countries in the European Union.

The morality rate among men has declined from a high of 54% in 1914 to less then 4% today. Despite this, there are only 40 males to every one hundred females. The government has initated a plan to eliminate this difference.

Heart disease rates are the lowest in Eurasia, at 13% in 2007. Cancer, homicide, and sucide are extremely low, at only 5% in 2007 as well. About 23% of men and 20% of women drink, while less then 18% of men and 10% of women smoke. The government also encourages drug prevention programs.

HIV/AIDS rates in Calathrina are also the lowest in the world, with less then 11,600 infected as of 2008. This low number is due to the government's HIV/AIDS preventions and treatments programs.

The government encourages all women between the ages of 18 and 40 to have children, thus raising the birth rate. Child support payments and payments for single mothers have been increased.

Education
Calathrina has a free education system guranteed to all citizens. The literacy rate is a astounding 99.7%. University education is paid by the government. As the result of a great emphasis on science and technology in education, Calathrinan medical, mathematical, scientific, and space and aviation research is generally of a high order. Men usually spend 16 years in school, while women usually spend 18.

College fees are paid by the Government. The Government also encourages the expansion of insistutions teaching astronomy and science.

Economy
Calathrina's economy is powerful. The Empire did not suffer from the Great Depression of the 1930s, thank to a code of economic regulations, a stabilized budget, and social reform programs. Rising oil prices, increasing foreign investment, and higher domestic consumption have been prevailent since the 1980's.

The country ended 2007 with a 7% growth rate, which has remained balanced since 1998. Calathrina's GDP is $13.990 trillion as of 2009, tied with the United States as the highest in the world. It has grown 8% since 2007.

The average salary in Calathrina is $1,400 a month, having rose from $1,200 a month in 2008. About 13% of all Calathrinans live under the poverty line, as of 2007. Unemployment in Calathrina is 3.2% as of 2007, down from 6% in 2005.

Oil, natural gas, metals, and timber account for about 45% of Calathrinan exports. The government has predicted this will drop to 40% by 2012. Calathrina is much more modernized and ahead of other resource-rich countries in terms of economic development, having a long tradition of education, science, and industry. More students graduate from college in Calathrina then any other country in the world.

A simpler, organized, and more streamlined tax code, adopted by the State Duma in 2001, has reduced the tax burden on the Calathrinan people and has signficantly increased state revenue. The Calathrinan personal income tax rate is 12%, making it the second most attractive country in the world for finanical investors, after the United Arab Emirates.

The Imperial budget has prospered from suprluses since 1998 and ended 2007 with a surplus of 6%. Calathrina used oil revenues to pay it's formely massive foreign debts. As such, it has one of the lowest debt rates in the world.

The economic development of the country is signficant. Most of European Calathrina, plus a vast area of southern Siberia, central Mongolia, and northern Central Asia have a large industrial base. The growth of personal incomes has averaged over 20% per year since 2000, as well the rates of home-buying, at over 32% per year since 2006. Fixed capital investments in economic development have tripled every year since 1998.

Currently, the government is engaged in a program to signficantly upgrade Calathrina's domestic infrustructure, especially in Siberia and Central Asia. $1 trillion will be spent on this until 2020.

Agriculture
Calathrina's agricultural industry is one of the most efficent and modernized in the world. A vast area of southern Siberia is used for farming and herding. Calathrina is the world's largest producer and exporter of rye, barley, wheat, sunflower seeds, buckweat, and oats. The Calathrinans also produce millet, vegetables, several types of citrus fruits, potatoes, and variations of corn. This success is supported by a government program of aid and subsides to farmers.

Energy
Calathrina is a recognized energy superpower. The counrty has the world's largest natural gas reserves, the 6th largest oil reserves, and the largest coal reserves. Calathrina is the world's leading natural gas exporter and leading natural gas producer, while also the second largest oil exporter and second largest oil producer, although it exchanges the second status with Saudi Arabia from time to time.

Calathrina is the largest electricity generator in the world and the 2nd largest renewable energy producer, the first due to Calathrina's developed hydroeletricity. Large cascades of hydroelectric plants are built in European Calathrina, especially along the Volga. The Asian part of Calathrina also features a number of major hydropower stations, however the gigantic hydroelectric potential of Siberia and the Calathrinan Far East largely remains unexploited.

Calathrina was the first country to develop a civilian nuclear reactor and to introduce the first nuclear power plant. Calathrina is the 2nd largest nuclear energy producer. Calathrinan Energy State Coporation manage all nuclear power plants in Calathrina. Nuclear energy is rapidly developing and expanding in Calathrina, the government aiming to increase the share of nuclear energy from the present 16% to 34% by 2020. The Calathrinan government allocates 128 billion dollars to the next generation of nuclear technology research and development.