It is the Constitution of the Russian Federation that defines all other laws in our country. This most important document was first drafted a very long time ago, and since then it has been repeatedly changed in order to better meet modern realities. But you can’t just amend the constitution – it’s a long and complicated process that requires agreement between the main politicians of the state.
Its modern version was adopted in 1993, although since then small changes have been made to it. Moreover, it is 95% consistent with the constitution of the Soviet Union of 1978. In one of the articles of the constitution (in the 82nd, to be precise), even the text of the oath, which the president of Russia takes before taking office, is fixed. The Decembrist uprising was partly caused by the emperor’s reluctance to adopt a constitution. It was suppressed. The constitution in Russia was almost adopted during the reign of Alexander I. However, the monarch eventually decided not to do this. A special reference copy of the Constitution of the Russian Federation is a red book with a cover made of lizard skin.
In the text of the Russian Constitution there are no borrowed words like “speaker” or “senator” – only Russians. The Russian constitution in the form of a book was sent twice to space, in 1999 and 2005. When the Russian Empire was ruled by Catherine II, the famous writer Fonvizin, along with diplomat Panin, tried to persuade her to adopt a constitution, but the empress refused. Until 2000, the aforementioned special copy of the Constitution of the Russian Federation was officially one of the attributes of the president’s power. The Russian Constitution is the highest code of laws in our country that governs all the rest.
The first attempts to limit the autocracy’s power through the constitution were made in Russia as early as the 17th century. The word “constitution” itself is written with a small letter, if we are talking about the type of document, and with a capital one, if we mean the specific Russian Constitution. Over a thousand people worked on the text of the modern constitution of Russia, and the project to create it lasted about three and a half years. Previously, until 2005, the day the Constitution was adopted was considered a public holiday, and therefore it was a day off. The most intensive amendments to the Constitution were made in 1991-1992, then during the year more than four hundred amendments were made to it.
