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T more than 17-million km², it is the largest country in the world, spanning eight time zones and constituting about one-eighth of Earth’s landmass.

It is home to 49 national parks and six natural World Heritage Sites, including the Virgin Komi Forests, covering 3.28 million hectares of tundra and mountain tundra in the Ural Mountains; the Volcanoes of Kamchatka; and Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world (1 700m).