CHAPTER 1 Introduction The Russian Federation usually known just as Russia is by far the largest country in the world It is almost twice as big as China and extends halfway around the globe It sprawls across eastern Europe and all of northern Asia covering 11 different time zones Russia Much of northern Russia including Siberia is covered with vast coniferous forest that stretches for thousands of miles This empty region is drained by large rivers that flow north into the Arctic Ocean lies between the Baltic Sea in the west the Pacific Ocean in the east the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Caspian and Black seas in the south The Bering Strait at the eastern tip of Russia separates Russia from North America and the state of Alaska Fourteen other countries border Russia only China has as many neighbors European Russia The western or European part of Russia 28 percent of the total country lies at the eastern end of the vast low-lying North European Plain This plain stretches from the North Sea east across Germany Poland Belarus and Russia to the Ural Mountains In Russia this fertile area is drained by the Volga Don and other large south-flowing rivers In the far south the Caucasus Mountains containing Mount Elbrus PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Total area 6,659,328 square miles 17,075,200 square kilometers sq km Highest point Mount Elbrus 18,506 feet 5,642 meters m Lowest point Volga Delta Caspian Sea 92 feet 28 m below sea level Coastline 23,345 miles 37,653 km Major rivers Ob Irtysh Amur Volga Yenisey Lena Major cities Moscow St Petersburg Novosibirsk Nizhniy Novgorod Yekaterinburg Samara Omsk Source CIA World Factbook
ARCTIC OCEAN Key Cities over 1 million people Cities under 1 million people Mountain Trans-Siberian Railway Border of former USSR Barents Sea Murmansk White Sea Kara Sea Laptev Sea L e n a R Bering Strait East Siberian Sea K o l y m a R i v e r ATLANTIC OCEAN IRELAND A r c t i c C i r c l e UNITED KINGDOM NETHERLANDS DENMARK NORWAY SWEDEN GERMANY CZECH REPUBLIC POLAND SLOVAKIA HUNGARY Baltic Sea FINLAND Lake Ladoga Neva River Lake Onega St Petersburg Novgorod Kaliningrad RUSSIA NIA A U LATVIA ESTONIA LITH BELARUS Minsk Smolensk Moscow capital ROMANIA UKRAINE Nizhniy Novgorod MOLDOVA BULGARIA Sea of Azov Rostov-na-Donu Volga River Samara Ufa Black Sea Sochi Mount Elbrus Kuban River Volgograd Chechnya i v e r CENTRAL SIBERIAN UPLANDS S WEST SIBERIAN PLAIN N I A T N U O M L A R U RUSSIAN FEDERATION Kazan Yekaterinburg Chelyabinsk O b River Omsk I r t y s h R i v e r Y e n i s e y R i v e r Novosibirsk Lake Baikal r e v i R r u m A CHINA CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS TURKEY Groznyy Caspian GEORGIA ARMENIA Sea AZERBAIJAN SYRIA IRAQ KAZAKHSTAN Aral Sea UZBEKISTAN IRAN TURKMENISTAN KYRGYZSTAN TAJIKISTAN AFGHANISTAN MONGOLIA CHINA 0 0 miles 1,000 kilometers 1,000 Alaska US Bering Sea Anadyr River Penzhina River PACIFIC OCEAN KAMATCHKA PENINSULA Sea of Okhotsk JAPAN Vladivostok Sea of Japan NORTH KOREA SOUTH KOREA Russia’s and Europe’s highest mountain run between the Black and Caspian seas They form the border between Europe and Asia The port of Murmansk on the Barents Sea and ports on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov are the only all-weather ports in Russia Those on the Baltic Arctic and Pacific coastlines are frozen solid in winter Asian Russia The Ural Mountains form the eastern border of Europe with Asia Beyond them lies Asian Russia This vast region known as Siberia comprises 72 percent of Russia and is bigger than the US and Western Europe combined Northern Siberia lies along the shores of the Arctic Ocean and is mostly within the Arctic Circle This cold region consists of a treeless plain known as the tundra Russia spreads across the continents of Asia and Europe The tiny enclave of Kaliningrad in the far west of the country is separated from the rest of Russia by Belarus Latvia and Lithuania Its subsoil remains frozen all year round while its surface melts during the summer months to form a boggy mosquito-ridden marsh Farther south the rest of Siberia is covered by a huge coniferous forest Many large rivers notably the Ob Yenisey and Lena drain north into the Arctic Ocean Lake Baikal close to the southern border with Mongolia is at 5,370 feet 1,637 m deep the deepest lake in the world Its vast size holds one fifth of the world’s freshwater The far east of the region bordering the Pacific Ocean is mountainous and remote 7
Anadyr a mining town in the Chukotka region of northeast Siberia is one of the coldest cities in Russia It has an extremely harsh climate in January the temperature dips from 4 F 20 C to 49 F 45 C In July it never rises above 50 F 10 C weather from the Arctic Ocean to its north but shielded by the Himalayas and other mountain ranges to its south and east These prevent the warm moist winds of the Indian and Pacific oceans from reaching the country A temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit F 70 degrees Celsius C recorded in February 1892 at Verkhoyansk in Siberia is the lowest temperature ever recorded outside Antarctica Climate Russia has a cold continental climate that produces two very different main seasons The almost uniformly freezing winters vary little from north to south but are far more extreme in the east This is because the country is exposed to cold Temperature and rainfall in Moscow 24-hour Average Temperature ºC 20 Rainfall mm 15 10 5 0 5 10 15 The temperature in Moscow is at or well below freezing for five months of the year with a short spring and autumn The three summer months are warm Rainfall is low throughout the year peaking in mid-summer 8 J FMAMJ Note 1 millimeter 0 039 inch Source GHCN 1 The Global Historical Climatology Network 90 75 60 45 30 15 0 J A S O N D
INTRODUCTION Land use European Russia is rich in minerals and raw materials including oil coal and iron ore The land is heavily farmed particularly in the fertile black soils of the steppes that stretch from the border with Ukraine in the east to beyond Novosibirsk in southern Siberia This region supports cattle pigs and sheep Cereals particularly wheat and crops for industrial use are all grown as are root crops such as potatoes and sugar beet which provide fodder for animals The south is warm enough to grow rice sunflowers citrus fruits grapes and tobacco Northern Russia and most of Siberia are heavily wooded and support forestry fishing reindeer herding and wild animal hunting Vegetables are grown in hothouses in the urban areas Like European Russia Siberia is rich in minerals and raw materials including gold diamonds oil and natural gas The main industrial areas in Russia are in the Volga river valley the Urals the northwestern Kola peninsula and southern Siberia Lighter manufacturing industries are concentrated in the urban areas of western Russia Isolated mining towns are scattered throughout all of Siberia and the Arctic regions The Altai Mountains straddle the border between Russian Siberia China Mongolia and Kazakhstan This area a UNESCO World Heritage Site is under pressure from people who live there to develop economically 9
