There's no such word as "motherland" in Russian. As you may notice, we communicate in English about it, so "motherland" is an English word, most commonly used as a translation for two Russian words: "родина" and "отечество". The first one means "native place", and though it's of feminine grammatical gender, it has nothing to do with the word "mother".
The second word means... well, fatherland, because it is derived from the word "father".
Source: native speaker
*Quoting /u/Searocksandtrees from a thread many moons ago
>hi! more input is welcome; meanwhile get started on these previous discussions
>* Why are some countries referred to as male or female? When/where did this arise?
>more examples
The summary of several answers is: Both the term Motherland and Fatherland have been used in both countries, however often with political connotations. Fatherland in Germany has a distinct militaristic connotation to it and Motherland in Russia has a distinct political connotation to it! The threads linked, as well as the others that have been archived, delve into this with much more depth.
I have a question.
I'm from Germany and I know that "Vaterland" was used to describe Germany way back when.
Nowadays this seems no longer be the case and is used for other countries with the meaning of "home country" or "country of origin" especially in film and literature. Does someone know when this shift in the meaning happened?
Example: 1989 film "For Queen and Country" featuring Denzel Washington is translated to "Für Königin und Vaterland"
Guys, we've had to delete a lot of comments that just consist of anecdotes of what users refer to their home countries as. Please make sure that you are actually able to answer the question before posting!