Why do Russians think they are Europeans?

Question

Since Moscow, the political capital of Russia is located in Asia, the country belongs to Asia.

Geographically Russia is both part of Europe and Asia (10% Europe / 90% Asia)

Answer 1

- You have to think historically. Not only is the bulk of the Russian population in Europe, but the order of expansion historically was for a group of people from Moscow conquering territory eastward to the Pacific Ocean. Siberia is more or less occupied territory of a European group.

- Besides the etymology of the word "Asia" is convuluted. The word  Asia originated from the Ancient Greek word "Ασία", first attributed to Herodotus (about 440 BC) in reference to Anatolia or, for the purposes of describing the Persian Wars, to the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. So the word only correlated to a fraction of what people call Asia today.

Answer 2

The majority of Russians are from Europe. Continentally it does belong to Asia, but the people are culturally more European than Asian.

Answer 3

1/10 European is still European.

In any case, it's more than 10%. While the larger part of Russia is in Asia, the Asian part of Russia is relatively sparse in population. Most of the large cities (including Moscow) are in Europe.

EDIT: You should see a map too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mosco...

Answer 4

Moscow, Russia is in Europe.

Russians are Europeans.

Answer 5

We're technically Eurasians. Are you jealous xD

Answer 6

...for the same reason Turkey does.  It's just better prestige than being Asian.

Answer 7

Hi,

Russian culture is very closely related with other Eastern European cultures, which isn't surprising because the Russian nation arose in Europe. You can look up Kievan Rus' for more on that. Anyway, it is largely for this reason that the United Nations considers Russia to be an Eastern European country despite the fact that the majority of the country lies geographically outside of Europe, and also the reason Russia plays in European gaming tournaments, etc. See a map of the UN geoscheme ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co... )

Further, considering that ethnic Russians, which comprise roughly 80% of Russia's population, are of European descent (Slavic), not to mention that the Russian language is considered Indo-European, and the fact that the majority of the population (again, roughly 80%) lives in European Russia, not to mention that most of the largest Russian cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg are in Europe, I would say Russians have a fairly good reason to call themselves European.

As for Turkey, something like 5% of Turkey lies in Europe, versus 25% for Russia. The discrepancy in population is even larger. So basically, if Russia wanted to join the European Union, which it does not, Russia would have a much more legitimate claim (if based on culture, population, and geography) of being "European" than Turkey does.  As you probably know, Turkey wants to join the EU and is being considered a candidate state.

Answer 8

Most of the big cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, are in Europe (West of the Urals).  This is where the Russian civilization started from, it spread eastwards into Asia much like the US spread westward from the original 13 colonies.  

Also Russia culturally has more in common with the rest of Europe then it does with the Asian civilizations.

At any rate, Europe and Asia ought really be considered one continent called "Eurasia".  Why would a mountain range be considered the dividing line--that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world.  They're only considered separate continents because Eurasia is so huge, so it is convenient to separate them.

Answer 9

You are correct about land area. But check about the ethnicity. Much larger proportion of population is European descent.

Answer 10

Ever heard of the Ural Mountains? That's the dividing line, east of Moskow!!!!!

Answer 11

because they are Europeans:)

Answer 12

"u should see the map"

U should look better to the map.

RUSSIA is only a _little_ part of Russian Federation (old USSR).

Russia _IS_ in europe.

Russians _ARE_ europians