Special Report: Premier Wen visits Russia, Kazakhstan, attends SCO meeting    

    BEIJING, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will pay an official visit to Russia on Oct. 27-29 for the 13th regular meeting between the Chinese and Russian prime ministers.

    The following are some basic facts about Russia.

    Geography: Sharing land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Russia covers an area of more than 17 million square km stretching from Europe to Asia.

    It also borders the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.

    Population: About 142 million, of whom 79.8 percent are Russian.

    Capital: Moscow.

    Official language: Russian.

    Natural resources: Forest covers about 51 percent of Russia's land area. The country has over 48,000 billion cubic meters of discovered natural gas reserves and its coal reserves of 200 billion tons ranks second in the world.

    Russia's other mineral resources include iron, zinc, lead, nickel, aluminum, molybdenum, gold, platinum and other nonferrous metals.

    Relations with China: On Dec, 27, 1991, the two countries signed a document in which Russia agreed that it would carry on the former Soviet Union's diplomatic ties with China.

    In 1996, China and Russia established a partnership of strategic cooperation. In 2001, they signed a treaty on good-neighborly and friendly cooperation.

    The total trade volume between China and Russia reached 48.17 billion U.S. dollars last year.