Etymology Russia

Etymology
Main articles: Rus’ people and Rus’ (name)
See also: Russian (disambiguation)
The name Russia is derived from Rus’, a medieval state populated primarily by the East Slavs. However, this proper name became more prominent in later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants “Русская земля” (Russkaya zemlya), which can be translated as ”

Russian land” or “land of Rus.” In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus’ by modern historiography. The name Rus’ itself comes from the early medieval Rus’ people, and Swedish merchants and warriors,[16][17] who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and founded a state centred on Novgorod that later became Kievan Rus’.

An old Latin version of the name Rus’ was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus’ that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия (Rossiya), comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Rus’, Ρωσσία Rossía—spelled Ρωσία (Rosía pronounced [roˈsia]) in Modern Greek.[18]

The standard way to refer to the citizens of Russia is “Russians” in English.[19] There are two words in Russian which are commonly translated into English as “Russians”—one is “русские” (russkiye), which most often refers to ethnic Russians—and the other is “россияне” (rossiyane), which refers to the citizens of Russia, regardless of ethnicity.[20]