Russia

Russia is a country in Eastern Europe that spans across Central and Northern Europe. Prior to the 12th century, the land that would become Russia was little more than a collection of small states competing with each other for dominance. The Russians lost contact with their southern neighbor, the Byzantine Empire, in the 8th Century with The Blackening, when the entire Balkans were swallowed up by the vampires.

Islam became the religion of the Khanate of Moscow due to influences from the Volga Bulgar Khanate of Kazan that neighbored them to the east. When the Khanate of Kiev was inherited by the Muscovite khan, the two states unified and began to conquer all other Russian states around them.

Moscow would eventually turn on its ally, and incorporate Kazan into it, as well as taking the other two local Turkic states of Sibir and Crimea.

The Kagan of Russia proclaimed himself to be Caliph in 1254, competing with the claims of the Shia Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt, and the rapidly crumbling Ummayyad Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain.

Russia rapidly expanded across Asia in the period between the 16th to 18th century, consuming virtually all land in Central and Northern Asia. The Russians began to colonize the Americas in the 18th century, forming the colony of Alaska.

Russia's position as the Caliphate came to an end in 1902, when secularists took over the government and began reforms, reducing the authority of the Caliph as a ruler to only the kremlin of the city of Kazan.