Honors Humanities

Physical Geography of Northern and Central Eurasia

Physical Geography has played a key role in shaping the history of this region. The extreme climate has made life hard for the people but each ethnic group has emotional ties to its particular homeland.

Landforms

Plains

The Russian Plain is an extension of the Northern European Plain, which actually begins as a narrow plain in France that gets wider as it moves east. By the time it reaches western Russia, it becomes an extensive rolling plain reaching basically from the Caucasus Mts. in the south to the Barents Sea in the north and ending at the Urals in the east. This plain is the most densely populated region of the country of Russia.

The Western Siberian Lowland (or plain) is the broadest, most level expanse of land in the world. This plain creates a large bowl-like basin that is drained by the extensive Ob River system.

The Aral Sea of Central Eurasia is also located in a relatively small lowland region

Plateaus

The Central Siberian Plateau (Uplands), located between the Yenisei and Lena rivers, is

characterized by high, rugged land that holds many undeveloped mineral deposits of lead, iron ore, and coal. Development of this untapped mineral wealth could provide Russia with great economic benefits in future years. In addition, there is a small upland region in the eastern part of Kazakhstan.

Mountains

The Ural Mountains running north to south at about 60oEform the dividing line between Europe

and Asia. They are physically similar to the Appalachians—old and worn with low elevation. As a result, they do not pose a barrier to transportation and did not stop invaders migrating from inner Asia over the centuries.

The Caucasus Mountains are found between the Black and Caspian Seas. They form part of the southern boundary between Europe and Asia.

Other mountainous areas include: the Eastern Siberian Highlands a series of high Mountain ranges similar to the Rockies, which stretch all the way along the border with Mongolia and then to the Pacific coast, and a series of mountain ranges which makeup the southern border of Northern Eurasia. The Pamirs are the highest in the region.

Rivers

The rivers of the region form a network of valuable waterways for transportation. They are also important for the production of hydroelectric power. Most flow north to the Arctic Ocean therefore the Soviet government built a series of east-west canals to link the rivers. The Volga River is the most important to transportation because it flows south to the Caspian Sea (the largest lake in the world) then by canal river traffic can reach the Black Sea.

Climate and Ecosystems

Due to the massive size of the Eurasian landmass, extreme seasonal temperature ranges tend to be the norm. Another factor influencing climates is Eurasia’s location in the high latitudes near the Arctic Ocean.

Tundra

Found in the northern most areas along the Arctic Ocean, temperatures here rise above freezing only a few weeks each year. The vegetation consists of mosses, wildflowers, and stunted trees.

Subarctic

Found south of the Tundra this climate zone is the dominant type of the region. The characteristic vegetation of tall needle-leaf trees forms a huge forest called the taiga. In Siberia winter temps can drop as low as –40oF, and the summer can last less than three months with temperatures as high as 100oF. Much of the region has permafrost underneath.

Humid Continental

Found mostly in the European part of Russia south of the subarctic region, winters here are cold and long and days are short. Nevertheless this region is very important for agriculture.

Steppe

The Steppe is found south of the humid continental climate zone. The vegetation here consists of temperate grasslands with unreliable rainfall, but like the humid continental zone this area is a key agricultural region especially the Kirgiz Steppe, an important center of wheat production.

Desert

This arid region found south of the steppe includes the Kara Kum and Kyzyl Kum deserts two areas converted into important cotton production centers via the use of extensive irrigation contributing to the shrinking of the Aral Sea.

Natural Resources

Russia has more forest, energy (including large reserves of oil, natural gas and coal), and mineral resources (iron ore, copper, gold, platinum, nickel and diamonds) than any other country in the world. Large areas of Siberia await exploration for even more possible natural resources. Unfortunately the former Soviet government wasted many of these resources.

Environmental Problems—because of the growth at any cost mentality, the push to compete industrially with the west and the high cost, environment and safety controls were often ignored by the communist system.

  1. Nuclear power plants: Nuclear power plants designed and built in the Soviet bloc malfunction often- yet they produce 60% of the power in the region. The accident at Chernobyl could happen again.
  2. Aral Sea: The Aral Sea is evaporating because the Amu and Syr Darya Rivers that feed into it are being diverted to irrigate cotton fields in the region.
  3. Lake Baikal: The deepest lake in the world and holds 20% of the world's fresh water supply. This lake is being polluted by the paper mill factories that dump waste into it.
  4. Baltic Sea: The Soviet Union built factories along the Baltic Sea and the rivers that feed into it. These factories dump untreated waste into rivers and directly into the Baltic.
  5. Oil Pipelines: To cut the cost of building the pipelines that carry oil from the vast resources in Siberia to cities, cut off valves that should be every three miles apart are every 30 miles apart. As a result some 920,000 barrels of oil are spilled in the environment every day in Russia.
  6. Taiga: Russia, for a price, is allowing foreign companies come in and cut down vast amounts of the Taiga for timber. This forest is disappearing at a rate of five million acres a year—a bigger threat than the destruction of the Brazilian rain forests.
  7. Air Pollution: Factories in 103 Soviet bloc cities emit polluted air with five times the allowed limit of dangerous chemicals. Many people in who live in these cities suffer from asthma, emphysema and other lung related diseases.
  8. Nuclear radiation: Some 130 nuclear explosions, mostly in the European part of Russia, were used to clear dirt for dams and extract oil from the ground—leaving radiation behind.