The New Russian Empire was encountered by the citizens of Hope Island after former residents Laika and Central sent a radio signal to Kazakhstan in the hope of contacting someone near the Kosmodrome. Yeah, that's a long story right there.

Anyway, they attracted the attention of the New Russian Empire, who sent an airplane out with soldiers to capture the town. The town was briefly held by the Russians, with some notes here that may be of historical interest.

While in town, much was learned about the New Russians. This page reflects what may now be known about them.

Russia, like the United States, had survivors after the apocalyptic event. Due to Russia being both a major oil supplier and having quite an impressive military stockpile, parts of the Russian army managed to survive and form a variety of little 'kingdoms' mostly along the southern portion of what used to be Russia.

The largest of these kingdoms gained access to some significant stockpiles of old world technology, and quickly began expanding and consuming the smaller kingdoms. The 'glory days' of Soviet Russia were idolized by these expansionists, and an attempt at a Socialist order started. Whomever named this the 'New Russian Empire' seems to have missed the irony of their socialist republic being called an empire.

In practice, most smaller towns in New Russia operate very similar to Hope Island – the Russian invaders noted that Hope was a 'socialist paradise'. Generally, the smaller towns operate with each person having a job and supporting the community, and the community itself having wealth which is used to benefit its citizens. This works great on a small scale, however, the larger cities take on more of a hybrid capitalist approach.

Generally speaking, Russian citizens in the city are promised free health care, food, lodging, and the essentials. To get 'luxuary' items or better accomodations requires some degree of capitalist work or some kind of advancement in the government heirarchy.

Additionally, citizenship is not easily gained; it requires some kind of service, typically unpaid military service, in order to be made a citizen. And even then, it is possible to be “loopholed” out of getting what you are promised. Conditions are generally better for people in the villages and farms than the people in the cities; however, the cities offer excitement, technology, and the promise of advancement in life which is tempting to many.

Further, the government has been known to 'conscript' people from the towns to the cities when more laborers are needed. This is rare, and those who are taken are made citizens afterwards, but it has happened in the past and will likely happen in the future.

New Russia boasts the largest functional air fleet in the world; their country is largely land-locked, and so they have focused on air transportation. They still have a good bit of fossil fuel left, and one of the few undepleated oil reserves (albiet in the arctic where it is incredibly difficult to harvest). Still, they are working on removing all reliance on fossil fuel as it will eventually run out.

In terms of naval power, New Russia is not in great shape. Their fleet is sparce and is mostly merchant vessels. Pirates are kept at bay largely via air power, however, New Russia is not in a position to fight a major naval battle. That being said, while a proper battleship could ravage Russia's merchant fleet, any battleship that entered Russia's shipping lanes would be at risk to Russia's bombers and aircraft which are a formidable force and certainly capable of sinking a battleship.

One of the few places in the world manufacturing new technology products in factories, Russia is making radios and other computer equipment in a somewhat mass-produced basis. There is still a lot of hand crafting involved, however the things they make are about as close to their old-world counterparts as possible.

For weapons, New Russia is still using a lot of its old world stockpile. They rely more on numbers than technological superiority on the ground, but with their air support, they are a force to be reckoned with.

Russia has a functional train network that mostly uses the old rail. Some of their trains are even solar powered. Electricity is common in the cities from a variety of sources, but rare to non-existant in the smaller towns and villages, which is part of the draw of the cities.

It is rumored that space launches will happen in the near future, to restore the satelite networks.

The New Russians claim the territory that spans the entire current-day country of Russia – which, frankly, has a lot of uninhabitable and barely habitable stretches. They have most of present day Kazakhstan and their tendrils reach into eastern europe in a haphazard, frequently changing border that sometimes reaches as far west as Poland but is rather spotty in places.

To the south, they have the Chinese and the Spire. There is something of an uneasy truce going on; everyone is staying on their own side of the border for now, but, conflict may be inevitable.

New Russia had a large expansion period in the past generation or so, to the point where it has gotten too big to be sustainable, and will likely shrink a good deal in the coming years as invaded territories push stretched-thin forces back to more reasonable borders. However, the core Russian territory is stable and strong.