e elk. Want of ports on the Mediterranean and
Atlantic hamper commerce, while the great ports in the Baltic are frozen
up four or five months in the year; the southern ports are growing in
importance, and wheat, timber, flax, and wool are largely exported. There
is a vast inland trade, facilitated by the great rivers (Volga, Don,
Dnieper, Dniester, Vistula, &c.) and by excellent railway and telegraphic
communication. Among its varied races there exists a wide variety of
religions--Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Shamanism, &c.; but
although some 130 sects exist, the bulk of the Russians proper belong to
the Greek Church. Education is backward, more than 85 per cent. of the
people being illiterate; there are eight universities. Conscription is
enforced; the army is the largest in the world. Government is an absolute
monarchy, save in FINLAND (q. v.); the ultimate legislative and executive
power is in the hands of the czar, but there is a State Council of 60
members nominated by the czar. In the 50 departments a good deal of local
self-government is enjoyed through the village communes and their public
assemblies, but the imperial power as represented by the police and
military is felt in all parts, while governors of departments have wide
and ill-defined powers which admit of abuse. The great builders of the
empire, the beginnings of which are to be sought in the 9th century, have
been Ivan the Great, who in the 15th century drove out the Mongols and
established his capital as Moscow; Ivan the Terrible, the first of the
czars, who in the 16th century pushed into Asia and down to the Black
Sea; and PETER THE GREAT (q. v.). Its restless energies are still
unabated, and inspire a persistently aggressive policy in the Far East.
Within recent years its literature has become popular in Europe through
the powerful writings of Pushkin, Turgenief, and Tolstoi.

RUSTCHUK (27), a town in Bulgaria, on the Danube, 40 m. S. by W. of
Bucharest; manufactures gold and silver ware, shoes, cloth, &c.; has a
number of interesting mosques; its once important fortifications were
reduced in 1877.

RUTEBEUF or RUSTEBEUF, a celebrated trouvere of the 13th
century, of whom little is known save that he led a Bohemian life in
Paris and was unfortunate in his marriage; his songs, satires, &c., are
vigorous and full of colour, and touch a note of seriousness at times
which one hardly anticipates.

RUTHENIANS, a hardy Slavonic people, a