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Learn about Russia's environmental geography, including the declining sturgeon harvest, the black market and Russian mafia, and the impact of the Soviet Union's nuclear activities. Discover the country's diverse landscapes, from fertile farmlands to the taiga and permafrost regions. Explore the devastating environmental challenges, such as air and water pollution, and the post-Soviet paradox of both recovery and degradation. Understand the population distribution and settlement patterns, including the movement eastward and the urban attraction.
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Environmental Geography • Declining sturgeon harvest • Black market and Russian mafia • Russian domain occupies a major portion of the world’s largest landmass • Home to some of best farmlands, metal resources, petroleum reserves • Large seasonal temperature extremes • The European West • Ukraine and Belarus cover eastern portions of European Plain • Cold winters and cool summers • Podzol soils – acidic soils that limit agricultural output and ability of the region to support a highly productive farm economy
Environmental Geography • The European West (cont.) • Chernozem soils – fertile “black earth” soils that have proven valuable for commercial wheat, corn, and sugar beet cultivation and for commercial meat production • The Ural Mountains and Siberia • Urals make European Russia’s eastern edge • Poor farming land • Siberia located east of the Urals • Taiga – coniferous forest zone • Permafrost – a cold-climate condition of unstable, seasonally frozen ground that limits the growth of vegetation and makes problematic the construction of even simple tracks.
Environmental Geography • The Russian Far East • Longer growing seasons and milder climates • Influence of monsoon rains of East Asia • Seismically active • The Caucasus and Transcaucasia • Located on European Russia’s extreme south • Between the Black and Caspian seas • Caucasus Mountains • A Devastated Environment • Air and Water Pollution • Poor air quality in hundreds of cities
Environmental Geography • A Devastated Environment (cont.) • Air and Water Pollution (cont.) • Legacy of Soviet Union • Water pollution from industrial sources • Lake Baikal pollution • The Nuclear Threat • Soviet expansion of nuclear weapons and nuclear power after 1950 • Fallout from above-ground testing • Nuclear explosions for seismic testing and oil exploration • Dumping of nuclear wastes • Chernobyl accident • Construction of new nuclear plants • Possibility of warehousing of international nuclear wastes
Environmental Geography • The Post-Soviet Paradox • Soviet Union’s demise brought environmental recovery in some areas • Consolidation of nuclear warhead storage • Increasing environmental awareness • Demise has also contributed to more environmental degradation • Casual handling of waste materials • Cities having to finance their own cleanup projects • Possible smuggling of weapons’ grade fuel out of Russia • Increased exploitation of resources to obtain cash
Population and Settlement • More than 200 million residents • Most live in cities • Population Distribution • European Russia: 110 million; Siberia: 35 million; Belarus and Ukraine: 60 million • The European Core • Region contains largest cities, biggest industrial complexes, and most productive farms • Supports higher population densities • Moscow metropolitan area: 8.5 million people • St. Petersburg on Baltic Sea • Volga River industrial region • Ural Mountains settlement region
Population and Settlement • Siberian Hinterlands • Sparsely settled landscape, with increasing distance between cities • Trans-Siberian Railroad – a key railroad corridor to the Pacific completed in 1904 • An alignment of isolated but sizable key urban centers follow it • Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) Railroad -- newer (1984) line that runs parallel, but further north, of Trans-Siberian
Population and Settlement • Regional Migration Patterns • Eastward Movement • Trans-Siberian Railroad accelerated pace of eastward movement • Greater political freedom than enjoyed under the Tsars • Tsars – czars; authoritarian leaders who dominated politics of pre-1917 Russian Empire • Political Imperatives • Leaders from both the imperial and Soviet eras forcibly moved selective populations to new locations • Gulag Archipelago – a vast collection of political prisons • Russification – Soviet policy of resettling portions of Soviet Union
Population and Settlement • New International Movements • Reverse Russification in newly independent non-Russian countries • By 2000, 6 million Russians had left former Soviet republics • Also movement to other regions • U.S., Israel, Finland • The Urban Attraction • Rural-to-urban migration • Greater freedom of mobility as compared to the Soviet period
Population and Settlement • Inside the Russian City • Core area that contains superior transportation connections, upscale stores and shops, most desirable housing, most important offices • No inner-city decay • No sprawling decentralized suburbs • Stozgorods (socialist neighborhoods) – fully planned public housing projects that ring the inner city • Chermoyuski – large uniform apartment blocks built during the 1950s and 1960s • Poorly constructed Soviet housing
Population and Settlement • Inside the Russian City • Mikrorayons – large housing projects of the 1970s and 1980s further out from city centers • Massed blocks of high-rise apartment buildings supposed to form self-contained communities • Greatest growth in recent years has been on the urban fringe • Dacha – elite cottage communities on urban fringe, for more well-to-do residents, especially for use in summers • The Demographic Crisis • Declining populations in the region • Attempts to better the healthcare system, to increase birthrates, and to foster immigration • Pattern of smaller families likely to continue
Cultural Coherence and Diversity • The Heritage of the Russian Empire • As other European nations carved out empires elsewhere in the world, the Russians expanded eastward and southward into Eurasia • Origins of the Russian State • Slavic peoples – defined linguistically as a distinctive northern branch of the Indo-European language family • Originated in modern Belarus • Intermarried with the Varangians (Rus) • Interacted with the Byzantine Empire and adopted Christianity and a Cyrillic alphabet • Eastern Orthodox Christianity – a form of Christianity historically linked to Eastern Europe and church leaders in Constantinople (modern Istanbul)
Cultural Coherence and Diversity • The Heritage of the Russian Empire (cont.) • Growth of the Russian Empire • By 14th century, a new and expanding Russian state was formed • The Russian peoples were divided into three distinctive, but closely related peoples: Russians, Belorussians, and Ukrainians • 16th and 17th centuries: expansion further east • Cossacks – seminomadic Slavic-speaking Christians who migrated to seek freedom in steppes • 1700’s expansion into the Baltic (Peter the Great) • 19th century expansion into Central Asia
Cultural Coherence and Diversity • The Heritage of the Russian Empire (cont.) • The Legacy of the Empire • Russian expansion was one of the greatest the Earth ever witnessed • The region, however, is still diverse • Modern-day tensions with western Europe • Russians believe they are heirs of Greek and Roman traditions • Long history of authoritarianism
Cultural Coherence and Diversity • Geographies of Language • Region is dominated by Slavic languages • The Belorussians and Ukrainians • Majority of Belorussians live in Belarus, and most people in Belarus are Belorussians • Russian speakers dominate large parts of eastern Ukraine • Outside of Ukraine, Ukrainians are scattered in communities in southern Russia and southwest Siberia • Patterns Within Russia • 80% of Russia’s population claims a Russian linguistic identity • Large enclaves of other peoples in Russia • Finno-Ugric speakers, Altaic speakers, Eskimo-Aleut speakers
Cultural Coherence and Diversity • Geographies of Language (cont.) • Transcaucasian Languages • A large variety of languages in this small region • No fewer than three language families are spoken in this region • Caucasian, Altaic, and Indo-European speakers • Geographies of Religion • Religious revival after the downfall of the Soviet Union • Mostly Eastern Orthodox Christianity • Roman Catholicism in western Ukraine • Islam in North Caucasus, Volga region, and Kazakstan border • Judaism in larger cities of European west • Buddhism in Russian interior
Cultural Coherence and Diversity • Russian Culture in Global Context • Soviet Days • Modernism in art was viewed as decadent • Social realism – an artistic style devoted to the realistic depiction of workers harnessing the forces of nature or struggling against capitalism • Turn to the West • By the 1980s, U.S. mass consumer culture had an impact on the region’s art • After the fall of the Soviet Union, a deluge of Western culture
Cultural Coherence and Diversity • Russian Culture in Global Context (cont.) • Russians and the Net • By 2003 an estimated 7 million Russian people will be using the Net • Threefold increase from 1999 • The Music Scene • Western popular music adopted • Generation of western-style music from within • Reactions from more conservative elements within Russia • Extreme nationalists and Eastern Orthodox Church
Geopolitics • Geopolitical Structure of the Former Soviet Union • Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 • Bolsheviks – a faction of Russian communists representing the interests of the industrial workers • Seized power in Russia after fall of Russian Empire • Bolsheviks transformed the spatial and economic structure of the country • The Soviet Republics and Autonomous Areas • Established 15 “union republics” based on nationality • Autonomous areas – created by Soviets to give regions of varying sizes as special ethnic homelands, but within structure of existing republics
Geopolitics • Geopolitical Structure (cont.) • Centralization and Expansion of the Soviet State (cont.) • Soviet state remained centralized, and union republics had no autonomy under Stalin • Enlargement of the Soviet Union after World War II • Port of Kaliningrad remained an exclave • Exclave – a portion of a country’s territory that lies outside its contiguous land area • Stalin erected an “Iron Curtain” • Term coined by Winston Churchill for ideological and political barrier between democracy and communism that has historically prevented cooperative solutions
Geopolitics • Geopolitical Structure (cont.) • Centralization and Expansion of the Soviet State • The Soviet Union and the U.S. became antagonists in a global Cold War • Escalation of military competition between the two nations • End of the Soviet System • Glasnost – policy of greater openness during the 1980s that was enacted by Gorbachev • Several republics demanded independence • Perestroika – planned economic restructuring to make production more efficient and more responsive to needs of Soviet citizens • December 1991, all 15 republics had become independent states and the Soviet Union ceased to exist
Geopolitics • Current Geopolitical Setting • Russia and the Former Soviet Republics • Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – a looser political union that included all but three of the former republics • 1996: Russian and Belarus political and economic union • 1998: Russia and Ukraine economic linkages • 2000–2001: Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova formed the GUAM group • Designed to facilitate trade (oil) through the Caspian–Black Sea corridor
Geopolitics • Current Geopolitical Setting • Russia and the Former Soviet Republics • Denuclearization – return of nuclear weapons from outlying republics to Russian control and partial dismantling • Movement of tactical nuclear weapons into Kaliningrad exclave • Devolution and the Russian Federation • March 1992: signing of a new Russian Federation Treaty • Granted Russia’s internal autonomous republics greater political, economic, and cultural freedoms • Autonomous republics located along northern slope of the Caucasus, central Volga Valley, southern border of Siberia • Greater autonomy gives greater economic freedom, but could fragment Russia more politically
Geopolitics • Current Geopolitical Setting (cont.) • Regional Tensions • Efforts to achieve greater autonomy in Siberia, Caucasus (Chechnya) • The Shifting Global Setting • Collapse of Soviet Union resulted in crash of Russian global power • Economic productivity and technological prowess, and not the control of large territory determines political success • Today, greater cooperation with China • Japan, Russia, and the Kuril Islands • Limited nuclear arsenal • Serves as intermediaries in diplomatic negotiations • 1990s: economic declines, but stabilization in 2000 and 2001 • Difficult to determine true economic potential of the region
Economic and Social Development • The Legacy of the Soviet Economy • During the Soviet period, most of what is Russia’s current economic infrastructure was established • Centralized economic planning – a system in which state controlled production targets and industrial output • Stressed the development of huge, basic industries • Nationalized agriculture, collective farms • Development of roads, rail lines, canals, dams, and communications networks • Overall, there were economic improvements, improvements in literacy, but inefficient agricultural system
Economic and Social Development • The Post-Soviet Economy • Problems of unstable currencies, corruption, and changing government policies plague the system • Redefining Regional Economic Ties • Less predictable flows of foreign trade between Russia and its former republics • Russia is still the economic power of the region • Privatization and Economic Uncertainty • 1992, the freeing of price controls increased inflation • Privatization led to economic abuses and corruption • Continued struggle in agricultural sector • 2/3 of country’s farmland was privatized by 2000 • Privatization of service, heavy industry, and natural resource sectors
Economic and Social Development • The Post-Soviet Economy (cont.) • The Russian Mafia • It’s estimated that the Russian mafia controls 40% of the private economy and 60% of the state-run enterprises • More liberal economic policies after the fall of the Soviet Union allowed the Russian mafia to flourish • Has global connections as well • A Fraying Social Fabric • Increased rates of violent crime, high unemployment, rising housing costs, declining welfare expenditures • Russian middle-class represents only 10% to 15% of the population • Increased domestic violence
Economic and Social Development • The Post-Soviet Economy (cont.) • A Fraying Social Fabric (cont.) • Limited healthcare expenditures • Alcoholism, smoking, and AIDS • Growing Economic Globalization • A New Day for the Consumer • Western consumer goods available to all who can afford • Luxury goods • Attracting Foreign Investment • Region struggles to attract outside capital • Strongest global ties are with U.S. and western Europe
Economic and Social Development • Growing Economic Globalization • Globalization and Russia’s Petroleum Economy • One of the strongest links between Russia and the global economy • Most exports today go to western Europe • Local Impacts of Globalization • Moscow has benefited the most • St. Petersburg and Omsk have seen growing global investment • Less competitive industrial centers have been hard hit