Russia

1
Russia

• Geography 200
• Dr. Stavros Constantinou

2
Russia Location and Size

• Russia is the worlds largest country
  17,075,000 sq. km (6,592,819 sq. mi.).
  
• It is almost twice as large as Canada, the second
  largest country.
  
• Russia has a tremendous east-west extent from
  the westernmost point near Kaliningrad (formerly
  Königsberg, 20º31E) in the Baltic Sea to the
  easternmost point at Cape Dezhnev (170º W) on the
  Bering Straits.
• These points are separated by approximately 170º
  of longitude, nearly halfway around the world,
  and crossing 11 time zones.

3
Russia 11 Time Zones!

• At the same moment it is
• 600 AM in Kaliningrad
• 900 AM in the Ural Mountains
• 130 PM in Vladivostok
• A little after 500 PM at Cape Dezhnev
• The time difference between Kaliningrad and Cape
  Dezhnev is more than twice the difference between
  New York and London (five hours) and nearly four
  times the difference between New York and San
  Francisco (three hours).

4
Russia Location and Size

• The maximum latitudinal extent of Russia,
  exclusive of islands in the Arctic Ocean, is
  about 35º.
  
• The northernmost point is Cape Chelyuskin (77º
  44N) the southernmost is Derbent, on the
  Caspian sea (42º N), about the same latitude as
  Cleveland.
• Russia is the northernmost large and populous
  country in the world.
  
• More than 75 of Russia lies polewards of the
  49th parallel (north of the U.S.-Canadian
  boundary).
  
• Moscow is farther north than Edmonton, Alberta,
  Canada.
  
• Moscow to Vladivostok is 9,332 km (5000 mi.) and
  it would take seven days and nights on the
  Trans-Siberian Railway to make the trip.

5
Russia Land Frontiers

• Russia shares boundaries with twelve countries
• Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland,
  Norway, Mongolia, North Korea, China, Kazakhstan,
  Azerbaijan and Georgia.
  
• A boundary that measures 12,880 km (8000 mi.)
  stretches between the Black Sea and the Pacific
  ocean.
  
• In the Far East, Sakhalin Island is separated
  from the northernmost main island of Japan by a
  40 km. (25 mi.) strait even narrower straits
  separate Japan from the Russian held Kuril Islands

6
Russia Physical Geography

• The Russian Plain
• The Ural Mountains
• West Siberian Plain
• Central Siberian Plain
• The Yakutsk Basin
• Eastern Highlands
• Central Asiatic Ranges
• The Caucasus Mountains
• The Caspian Sea 370,842 sq. km (143,244 sq.
  mi)
  
• The Aral Sea 64,472 sq. km. (24,904 sq. mi.)
• Lake Erie 25,655 sq. km. (9,910 sq. mi.)

7
Russia Climate

• Tundra (ET)
• Subarctic (Dwc and Dwd)
• Humid Continental (Dfa and Dfb)
• Steppe (BSk)
• Desert (BWk)
• Mediterranean or dry summer subtropical (Csa)

8
Russia Vegetation and Soils

• Tundra extensive, treeless plains
  inceptisols.
  
• Taiga -- coniferous forest spodosols, alfisols.
• Mixed Forest coniferous and deciduous trees
• Broadleaf Forest Southern Far East Russia,
  mostly deciduous trees.
  
• Steppe Short grass prairie mollisols,
  (chernozem black earth)
  
• Desert Clump grasses and xerophytic plants
  aridisols

9
Russia Resources

• Russia has a rich resource base.
• One of the most important mineral producing
  countries with widely scattered deposits.
  
• Russia leads the world in the production of
  natural gas and lead.
  
• Russia also leads the world in iron ore reserves
  and natural gas reserves.
  
• Russia is second in the production of platinum,
  tungsten, aluminum and vanadium.

10
Russia Resource Regions

• The Ural Mountains
• Iron, ferro alloys, copper, aluminum, potash,
  asbestos, magnesium, low-grade coal
  
• The Volga-Urals and West Siberian Plain
• Petroleum and natural gas
• The Caucasus-Caspian Region
• Petroleum, natural gas,nonferrous metals
• Middle Asia
• Coal, copper,iron, natural gas, oil, sulfur,
  lead, zinc, aluminum, uranium, ferro alloys,
  phosphate, asbestos, mercury, sodium sulfate.
  More than 90 of Russias coal reserves are found
  in Asiatic CIS.

11
Russia Resource Regions

• The Kuznetsk Basin (Kuzbas)
• Russias largest coal producing region, with iron
  in areas adjacent to the Basin.
  
• The Kolskiy Peninsula
• Phosphate, nickel, other ferro alloys, aluminum,
  copper, iron, additional iron in nearby Karelia.
  
• The Kursk Magnetic Anomaly Iron.
• Scattered areas in the European Arctic and
  Siberia
  
• Coal in the Pechora basin and elsewherecopper,
  nickel and aluminum at Norilsk gold, diamonds,
  tin, natural gas,other minerals in Central and
  Eastern Siberia Kolyma gold field near the Sea
  of Okhotsk diamond mines in Yakutiya.

12
Russia History Highlights

• 1462 Establishment of the Grand Duchy of
  Muscovy.
  
• Period of eastward expansion by the Cossacks.
• 1682-1725 Czar Peter the Great
• 1760-1796 Czarina Catherine the Great
• Period of colonialism, imperialism. Major
  expansions in quest of warm water ports.
  
• 1917 Russian Revolution, establishment of
  Communist government, formation of the USSR.
  
• 1979 USSR invasion of Afghanistan, again in
  quest of a warm water port.
  
• 1991 Collapse of the USSR, political
  reorganization, formation of the Commonwealth of
  Independent States.
  

13
Russians in North America

• Russians were the first white settlers in what is
  now Alaska, having come across Siberia and the
  Bering Strait.
  
• The first Russian settlement in Alaska was
  established in 1784 on Kodiak island.
  
• They worked their way southward along the Pacific
  coast of North America, establishing villages and
  forts to protect their holdings.
  
• They reached the area just north of San Francisco
  Bay, where they built Fort Ross in 1812.
  
• U.S. Secretary of State William Seward offered to
  buy Alaska from the government of Russia for 7.2
  million a decision derided as Sewards Folly
  and Sewards Icebox.
• Seward has been vindicated as Alaskas wealth in
  gold and petroleum have been discovered, as well
  as its strategic location for U.S. defense.
  

14
Russia Population

• Russian population is declining from 147,300,000
  in 1997, down to 145,500,000 in 2002.
  
• Russia rank 8th in population among the countries
  of the world.
  
• Russia has 2.30 of the worlds population.
• A little more than a century ago, Russia had
  twice as many inhabitants as the U.S. now Russia
  has about one-half the U.S. population.
  

15
Russia Population Decline

• Almost five million Russians were killed during
  the collectivization period of the early 1930s
  because of famines and state directed killings.
  
• World War I, its aftermath of civil war and the
  attendant famines killed 17 million Russians and
  about eight million deficit births (i.e., births
  that would have taken place, but did not due to
  the dramatic reduction in population).
• World War II cost Russia approximately 27 million
  deaths and 13 million deficit births.
  
• Thus, in the 20th century, Russia lost more than
  70 million people.
  
• The effect of deficit births is reflected in a
  shortage of young people in the labor force war
  deaths are reflected in a higher proportion of
  aging women than men.

16
Russia Population Distribution

• Russias population is unevenly distributed.
• Most of Russias population is located in
  European Russia, or the western one-fifth of
  the country.
  
• Overall arithmetic density is very low, 8.5
  persons per square kilometer (22 persons/sq.
  mi.).
  
• The areas of highest population density are the
  lowland of the Trans-Caucasus, the Moscow area,
  and the middle Volga lands.
  
• Most of the taiga, tundra, and desert areas have
  densities of one person per sq.km. (two persons
  or less per sq. mi.)
  
• Following the collapse of the communist regime of
  the former Soviet Union, 25,299,000 ethnic
  Russians found themselves in the minority in the
  the former Soviet Socialist Republics.

17
Russians in Near Abroad

• Republic Russians Percent
• Ukraine 11,365,000 22.1
• Kazakhstan 6,228,000 37.8
• Uzbekistan 1,653,000 8.3
• Belarus 1,342,000 13.2
• Kyrgyzstan 917,000 21.5
• Latvia 906,000 34.0
• Moldova 562,000 13.0
• Estonia 475,000 30.3
• Azerbaijan 392,000 5.6
• Tajikistan 388,000 7.6
• Lithuania 344,000 9.4
• Georgia 341,000 6.3
• Turkmenistan 334,000 9.5
• Armenia 52,000 1.6
• Total 25,299,000

18
Russia Urban Geography

• About 73 of Russians now live in urban centers.
• The phenomenon of urbanization is a development
  of the twentieth century.
  
• 1920s less than one-fifth of the population was
  urbanized
  
• 1940s one-third of the population was classified
  as urban.
  
• 1960 just under one-half of the population (then
  210,000,000) lived in cities and towns.
  
• The former Soviet Union pursued a policy of
  encouraging people to move eastward. About
  25,000,000 people migrated internally from west
  to east, causing rapid growth in some difficult
  environments, like Sakha (Yakutiya).

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Russia Changing Urban Geography

• OLD NAME, USSR
• Gorkiy
• Leningrad
• Sverdlovsk
• Stalingrad
• Kuybyshev

• NEW NAME, CIS
• Nizhniy Novgorod
• St. Petersburg
• Yekaterinburg
• Volgograd
• Samara

21
Russia Cultural Geography

• Russia has an extremely diverse population,
  varying widely in language, history, religion,
  physical characteristics, and geographic
  distribution.
• Census authorities recognize about 100 distinct
  ethnic groups.
  
• Russians form the dominant ethnic group, with
  about 83 of the population.
  
• During the Soviet years some ethnic rights were
  allowed the use of ethnic languages for schools,
  courts, businesses, newspapers and books
  maintenance of ethnic customs, with severe
  limitations on religious practices.

22
Russia Cultural Geography

• Indo-European languages of Russia
• The Eastern Slavs Russians, Ukrainians, and
  Byelorussians. Found in Central and Northern
  European Russia also Siberia and Kazakhstan 72
  of the populace.
• Latvians and Lithuanians
• Armenians and Tajiks
• Altaic languages Islamic peoples in Turkestan
• Uralic Family Estonians, Finns, Karelians
• Other Jews, Caucasian peoples, Mongols, Koreans,
  Eskimos.
  

23
Russia Economic Geography--Agriculture

• Currently about 14.4 of Russias labor force
  works in agriculture. This is high compared to
  other industrialized countries (U.S.-- 2).
  
• Main products potatoes, wheat, sugar beets,
  barley, sunflower seeds, corn, peas, buckwheat,
  millet and rice.
  
• Under communism, Soviet agricultural production
  was unsuccessful, relative to industrial
  production.

24
Soviet Agriculture

• Organized along collective lines
• Kolkhoz (a collective farm, average size about
  900 acres) the principal element was a peasant
  family which worked full-time on large tracts of
  state owned land surrounding the farm. They
  retained small tracts (mean size was 1.2 acres)
  of land for personal cultivation of any product
  desired.
• Sovkhoz (a state farm, average size about 49,420
  acres) single purpose units managed by workers
  but controlled by the state, factories in the
  fields.
• The USSR had 73 more cropland sown to crops than
  the U.S., but produced only 80 of the U.S.
  yield.
  
• American farmers during the Soviet era were 10
  times more productive than Soviet farmers.
  
• Reasons for poor results of Soviet agriculture
• Extreme environmental conditions.
• Organization which emphasized industry over
  agriculture.
  
• Mismanagement.

25
Russias Agricultural Regions

• Large scale diversified extending from the Black
  Sea to the valley of the Irtysh River in the
  east. Crops wheat, sugar beets, potatoes, fruits
  and vegetables, including grapes. Large herd of
  cattle, sheep and pigs.
• Mixed Three regions, the large triangular area
  around Moscow, the mountains and foothills of the
  Caucasus and small but significant zones of the
  Far East on the Chinese border and Pacific Ocean.
  Crops rye, barley, potatoes, fodder crops and
  dairy cattle (similar to Great Lakes region).
• Irrigated North and east of Caspian Sea to
  boundary with China. Crops cotton,
  tobacco,fruits and vegetables, some grains
  including irrigated rice. Sheep and hardy cattle
  scattered pastures.
• Localized farming Area of short growing seasons
  from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. Farming
  concentrated near isolated settlements which are
  local markets for potatoes, rye, barley,oats,
  hardy vegetables,milk, butter, eggs and cheese.
• Arctic-Tundra subsistence A few root crops
  manage to mature in the brief, but intense
  summer. Mainly hunting country. Reindeer help
  sustain human communities.

26
Russias Industrial Regions

• Central Industrial (Moscow) Region
• River transport outward from Moscow on the Volga,
  Oka, Dvina and Dneiper. Roads and railroads also
  radiate outward from Moscow.
  
• Nizhniy Novgorod the Soviet Detroit because
  of automobile manufacture Yaroslavl, the tire
  center Ivanovo the Soviet Manchester, due to
  textile industry and Tula, mining and
  metallurgy.
• St. Petersburg high quality machine building,
  nearby bauxite deposits. Major shipbuilding
  plants to supply nearby port and naval station,
  Kronshtadt.
• Povolzhye (Volga Region)
• Area extends along the Middle and Lower Volga
  River. Important transport and major oil
  producing region. The Moscow Canal extends the
  northern navigability of the system into the
  heart of the Central Industrial Region. The
  Mariinsk Canals provide access to the Baltic Sea.
  The region has 29,000,000 people. Major cities
  are Samara, Volgograd, Kazan, and Saratov.
• Urals
• The Ural Mountains are the eastern boundary of
  Europe.
  
• They are not an obstacle to east-west travel
  roads, railways and pipelines cross the mountains
  in many places.
  
• The Urals are rich in metallic minerals, but poor
  in coal.
  
• Oil deposits between the Urals and Volga help
  relieve this deficiency.
  
• The preceding three industrial regions are
  growing towards each other and consolidating
  Russias industrial core.

27
Russias Industrial Regions

• 4. The Kuznetsk Basin (Kuzbas)
• 2000 km (1200 miles) east of the Urals.
• Kuznetsk has large deposits of coal and iron.
• Leading center is Novosibirsk (Siberias Chicago)
  at the intersection of the Trans-Siberian Railway
  and the Ob River.
  
• Resources and products include heavy engineering
  products (railway rolling stock) aluminum from
  Urals bauxite hydroelectric power timber brown
  coal oil is piped from the Volga-Urals fields to
  be refined at Irkutsk.
• 5. Baykaliya Region (Lake Baykal Area ) (Mining,
  lumbering and some farms are the major
  activities.
  
• Major centers are Bratsk and Irkutsk
• 6. Far East Region
• Russia has 8000km (5000 mi.) of Pacific
  coastline, more than the U.S. including Alaska.
  
• The port city of Vladivostok (700,000) is the
  eastern terminus of the Trans Siberian Railway,
  lies at a latitude midway between Seattle and San
  Francisco, but must be kept open through the
  winter by ice breakers unheard of in Seattle or
  San Francisco.
• The region has huge expanses of forests
  lumbering and fishing are major activities.
  
• Coking quality coal deposits are in the Bureya
  River Valley
  
• Komsomolsk has steel works.

28
Russia Political Geography

• In 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
  (USSR) was succeeded by the Commonwealth of
  Independent States (CIS), which included all the
  former Soviet republics except Lithuania, Latvia,
  Estonia, and Georgia these proclaimed their
  independence.
• Following the devolution of the Soviet Union, the
  map of the Russian Federation comprises 22
  federal republics and two federal cities, Moscow
  and St Petersburg

29
Russia Political Geography

• Based on relative location, Russias internal
  republics are classified into five groups
  
• The Republics of the Heartland
• Mordoviya,Chuvashiya, Mariy-el, Tatarstan,
  Udmirtiya, Bashkortostan, and the Urals Republic
  
• The Republics of the Caucasian Periphery
• Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetiya, North Ossetia,
  Kabardino-Balkariya, Karachayevo-Cherkisiya,
  Adygeya, and Kalmykiya
  
• The Republics of the Southeast
• Altaya, Khakasiya,Buryatiya, Tyva, Promorskiy
  Kray (Maritime Republic)
  
• The Republics of the North
• Kareliya, Komi, Sakha (Yakutiya)
• Yevreskaya (Jewish) Autonomous Region

30
Russia Political Geography

• Following the election of Vladimir Putin as
  President in March 2000, one of his first moves
  was to turn Russia into a single economic and
  legal space.
• In May, he issued a presidential decree which
  divided Russias 89 republics and regions into
  seven new federal districts.
  
• Central (Moscow), Far Eastern (Khabarovsk), North
  Caucasus (Rostov-na-Donu), Northwest (St.
  Petersburg), Siberia (Novosibirsk), Urals
  (Yekaterinburg), and Volga (Nizhny Novgorod).
• Each of these was to be headed by a
  plenipotentiary representative appointed by the
  President.
  

31
Russia Political Geography

• The goal was to weaken the regional governors who
  accumulated significant powers under the Yeltsin
  presidency.
  
• Security and law enforcement were central to the
  duties of the presidential appointees five of
  the seven came from the army or security
  services.
• Putin relieved the governors of the right to sit
  in the Federation Council, the upper house of the
  Russian parliament.
  
• He also stripped them of their immunity from
  federal prosecution.
  
• Putin passed legislation that gave the president
  power to dismiss governors and regional
  legislators if they violated federal law.

32
Russian Heartlands Theory

• Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) foresaw the rise of
  Russian power. He noted that large areas subject
  to penetration along river routes were vulnerable
  to a strong maritime power.
• A large area of Eurasia, not penetrated by
  navigable rivers, would be safe as a fortress and
  thus, able to develop strength in its secure
  isolation.
• This area, Pivot Area (1904), was located in
  western Russia, stretching from the Moscow Basin,
  Across the Volga Valley and the Urals into
  central Siberia.
• The picot area would be of crucial significance
  in the political geography of the 20th century
  moreover he asserted that any power based in the
  pivot area could gain strength sufficient to
  eventually rule the world
• (continued next slide)

33
Russian Heartlands Theory

• In 1919 Mackinder proposed the Heartland Theory
• Who rules East Europe commands the heartland
• Who rules the Heartland commands the World
  Island
  
• Who rules the World Island commands the World
• Nicholas Spykman (1894-1943) emphasized the role
  of the rimland in controlling the heartland.
  
• David Hoosen (1962) identified a new Central
  Siberian heartland that is an eastward extension
  of the original Russian core.

34
Kaliningrad Russia on the Baltic

• The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad lies wedged
  between Lithuania and Poland, facing the Baltic
  Sea, through its giant naval port.
  
• The Russians acquired this bit of Germany at the
  end of WWII (1945) and expelled virtually all
  ethnic Germans. This gave the Russians a
  strategically important warm water port.
• Russians replaced the departed Germans, and today
  Kaliningrads population is almost one million,
  90 of whom are Russians.

35
Chechnya

• Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim republic that
  resisted Russian colonization in the nineteenth
  century.
  
• During the rule of Stalin, Chechens were exiled
  to Siberia because they collaborated with the
  Nazis.
  
• They were allowed to return by Khrushchev in the
  1950s.
  
• Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in
  1991, the Chechen fought the Russians to a
  stalemate.
  
• For economic and political reasons, Moscow has
  never granted Chechnya independence
  (approximately ¼ of the Chechen population is
  Russian).
• Since 1994, there has been a state of warfare
  between Chechen rebels and Russian troops. Muslim
  fundamentalism among the Chechens has led to
  terrorist as well as guerrilla warfare tactics.
  The capital city of Groznyy was destroyed.
• On Oct. 23, 2002, Chechen rebels seized a crowded
  Moscow theater and detained 763 people, including
  3 Americans. Armed and wired with explosives, the
  terrorists demanded that Russian government end
  the war in Chechnya. Government forces stormed
  the theater the next day, after releasing a gas
  into the theater, which killed not only all the
  terrorists, but more than 100 of the hostages.

36
Transcaucasian Transition Zone

• Armenia
• Is a landlocked country that occupies some of the
  earthquake prone regions of Transcaucasia.
  
• It is the smallest of the three countries of the
  TTZ.
  
• The Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is
  located within Azerbaijan.
  
• Following the genocide of Armenian populations in
  WW I, by the Turks, Armenia enjoyed a two year
  period of independence. The soviets took it over
  in 1920 and in 1936 they proclaimed it one of the
  15 Soviet Socialist Republics.
• Following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
  Armenia went to war with Azerbaijan over
  Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result, Azerbaijan cut the
  pipeline from the Caspian Sea and pipelines from
  Georgia stopped because of civil war there. The
  Armenian economy collapsed.
• Armenia is rich in mineral and produces a variety
  of fruits and vegetables. It has a plentiful
  supply of hydroelectric power.
  
• Yerevan, the capital city, is within sight of the
  Turkish border.
  

37
Transcaucasian Transition Zone

• Azerbaijan
• Azerbaijan is the largest in area and population
  of the three TTZ countries.
  
• Predominantly Shiite Muslim (like Iran), it
  borders on the Caspian Sea and encircles the
  Armenian/Christian area Nagorno-Karabakh.
  
• Azerbaijan is rich in oil from the oilfields in
  the region of the countys capital, Baki (Baku).
  
• Currently, the oil from these fields is exported
  by pipeline that runs through Dagestan and
  Chechnya to the Russian city of Novorossiysk.

38
Transcaucasian Transition Zone

• Georgia (Sakartvelo to Georgians)
• Is a former republic of the USSR that did not
  join the Commonwealth of Independent States.
  
• Physiographically, Georgia, which is a little
  larger than ½ of Ohio, is framed by mountainous
  terrain and fertile valleys.
  
• The capital city is Tbilisi.
• The country has 4,700,000 people, 70 of whom are
  Georgian. Minorities include Armenians (9)
  Russian (7) Azeris (5) and smaller proportions
  of Ossetians,and Abkhazians.
• (continued next slide)

39
Transcaucasian Transition Zone

• Georgia
• Following the breakup of the Soviet Union,
  Georgia has been subject to internal violence and
  civil war. The Abkhazan region has fallen into
  the hands of rebels.
• The Georgian regime under Eduard Scheverdnadze
  (Soviet minister of foreign affairs under
  Gorbachev) applied for membership in the CIS in
  hope of salvaging the territorial integrity of
  the country.
• Historically, Christian Georgia has aligned
  itself with Russia because of its location in the
  path of Islamic expansion.
  
• Georgia has a Black Sea coast and favorable
  climate for growing tea, grapes, and citrus
  fruit.
  
• Georgia produces 5 of the worlds manganese at
  Chiatura.