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
RUSSIA The Russian people The 2010 census recorded 142,856,536 people living in Russia More than three-quarters are ethnic Russians with the remaining one-quarter representing 160 different Slav and non-Slav ethnic groups Russia’s population density is 22 people per square mile 8 people per sq km because the country is so big By comparison the population density of Britain is 684 people per square mile 264 people per sq km The official language is Russian and it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet Many of the different nationalities speak their own officially recognized local languages which they write in their own alphabet or in the Latin alphabet used to write English and other European languages From 1922 91 Russia was one of 15 republics inside the USSR or Soviet Union When the union collapsed many Russians found themselves living in what to them were foreign countries They formed about one-third of the population in each of the republics of Kazakhstan Estonia and Latvia Similarly many Ukrainians Armenians The Russian people Chechen 1 Chuvash 1 Bashkir 1 1 Ukrainian 1 4 Tatar 3 7 Other and unspecified 14 1 Russian 77 7 Including Armenian Avar Belarussian German Jewish Kazakh Moldavian and Udmurt Source 2010 Census Four out of every five people who live in the Russian Federation are ethnic Russians The remaining one-fifth is drawn from 160 different ethnic groups some numbering no more than 10,000 people Kazakhs and others found themselves in Russia Some of the former Soviet republics such as These Russian women from a village near St Petersburg celebrate the traditional festival of Shrovetide to mark the end of winter and the beginning of the Christian festival of Lent They are dressed traditionally and compete to knock each other off the beam
INTRODUCTION The Trans-Siberian Railway starts in Moscow and ends in Vladivostok on the Pacific coastline Train passengers travel through seven time zones and spend more than six days on board Construction of the railroad began in 1891 and was completed in 1916 Kyrgyzstan tried to keep their Russian population because they needed its skills Most however discriminated against Russian minorities forcing them to meet local language and residency requirements to gain citizenship As a result many Russians left the former republics and emigrated to Russia itself Urban and rural Seventy-four percent of the Russian population lives in cities the rest in the countryside The capital Moscow is home to 11 6 million people St Petersburg formerly known as Leningrad has a population of 4 6 million while 10 other cities all have populations over 1 million The Russian population is not evenly spread across the country with around 100 million people living in European Russia and only 40 million in Siberia Transportation The quickest way to travel in Russia is by air since distances between the major cities are vast The main carrier Aeroflot International Russian Airlines competes with three other smaller international airlines A series of regional babyflot airlines fly domestic routes The high speed Sokol falcon rail link connects St Petersburg to Moscow while the world-famous Trans-Siberian Railway connects Moscow with Vladivostok 5,759 miles 9,288 km and six days four hours away to the east Moscow has an excellent metro system and other cities are served by streetcar trolleybus and bus services In rural areas car ownership is low and people rely more on efficient bus networks Changing Russia Modern Russia is changing rapidly It only emerged as an independent nation in 1991 and has since undergone a massive political social and economic revolution that has affected every aspect of people’s lives Russia was once part of a major world empire and is now struggling to find a new role Its people are facing a very different world from the one lived in by their ancestors 11
