Russia and the Republics
Warm-up 2/4- Make two conclusions based on
the map below.
Landforms and Resources
 Russia is the largest country in the world
 Major landforms
 Northern European Plain
 The West Siberian Plain
 The Central Siberian Plateau
 The Russian Far East
Landforms and Resources
 The Northern European Plain
 Lowland area
 Stretches over 1,000 miles from the western border of Russia
and the Republics to the Ural Mountains
 Chernozem- black earth- this is one of the worlds most fertile
soils
 Many of the regions agricultural areas are located here
 Three of the region’s largest cities are located here: Moscow
(capital of Russia), St. Petersburg, and Kiev (capital of
Ukraine)
Landforms and Resources
 West Siberian Plain
 The Ural Mountains- they separate the Northern European
and West Siberian plains
 The West Siberian Plain lies between the Urals and the Yenisey
River and between the shores of the Arctic Ocean and the
foothills of the Altay Mountains
Landforms and Resources
 Central Siberian Plateau and Russia Far East
 Uplands and mountains are the dominant landforms
 Far East- volcanic ranges
 The Sakhalin and Kuril islands lie towards the south
 Russia seized the islands from Japan after WWII, but Japan
still claims ownership of the Kuril Islands
Landforms and Resources
 Southern Landforms
 The Caucasus Mountains- stretch across the land and separate
the Black and Caspian seas
 Transcaucasia- republics or Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia
 Central Asia- Kazakhastan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
 Turan Plain- lowland between the Caspian Sea and the
mountains and uplands of Central Asia
 Two major rivers- Syr Darya and Amu Darya
 Deserts- Kara Kum and Kyzyl Kum
Landforms and Resources
 Rivers and Lakes
 Ob, Yenisey, Lena, and the Volga Rivers
 Caspian Sea
 Aral Sea- also a saltwater lake
 Lake Baikal- The deepest lake in the world

It holds 20% of the world’s fresh water
 Drainage basins- an area drained by a major river
and its tributaries

Arctic Ocean, Caspian Sea, Pacific Ocean, Baltic Sea, Black Sea,
and Aral Sea basins
Landforms and Resources
 Russia and the Republics have a great wealth of
natural resources
 Managing of the resources is difficult
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One challenge- transporting the resources from harsh and
distant regions
Another challenge- how to use the resources without damaging
the environment in the process
Landforms and Resources
 Natural resources
 Huge reserves of coal, deposits of iron ore, and other metals
 Also the leading producer of oil and natural gas
 Petroleum deposits around the Caspian Sea
 Huge forests are home to 1/5 of the worlds timber resources
 Powerful rivers make it a large producer of hydroelectric power
Landforms and Resources
 Resource management
 Harsh climates
 Rugged terrain
 Huge distances
 These all make it difficult to transport resources
 Arctic and Subarctic region- Siberia- businesses find it difficult
to attract workers to this region
 Damage to environment- mining, gas, and oil operations have
caused significant damage

Russia’s hydroelectric plants have also caused damage to plant and
animal habitats
Climate and Vegetation
 Major climate regions
 Humid continental
 Subarctic
 Semiarid
 desert
Climate and Vegetation
 Tundra
 Forest
 Steppe
 Desert
Warm-up 2/5
 Name three physical features that impact settlement
in Russia and the Republics.
Vocabulary- Term, definition, and picture
Chernozem
Ural Mountains
Eurasia
Transcaucasia
Siberia
Continentally
Taiga
Runoff
Trans-Siberian
Road
 Baltic Republics
 Czar
 Russia Revolution
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 USSR
 Command

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Economy
Collective Farm
Red Army
Supra
Silk Road
Great Game
Nomad
Yurt
Caucasus
Chechnya
Nagorno-Karabakh
 Privatization
 Distance Decay
1. What is the name of the region's westernmost lowland?
2. What mountain range separates Russia from Transcaucasia?
3. Why might a large part of the region's population live on the
Northern European Plain?
4. What factor contributes to the dry conditions on the Turan
Plain?
5. Why is the Volga one of the region’s most important rivers?
6. Why has resource management been a problem for the
leaders in Russia and the Republics?
7. How can climate affect transportation?
8. To what depths can permafrost extend in Russia and the
Republics?
9. How does distance from the sea affect the region’s climate?
10. In what way is the climate of Transcaucasia unique?
11. What are the major vegetation regions in Russia and the
Republics?
12. How are climate and vegetation related?
Map Monday
• What is the purpose of a railway system?
• How would this type of connection be beneficial to
Russia?
HEI Russia
Human Environment Interaction
 Modification: changing of environment
to make life easier for the people
 Adaptation: changing of people’s lives to
better fit the environment
 Dependency: relying on the
environment for survival
 Often interactions that take place now
lead to negative effects later on.
Tran-Siberian Railroad
 Railway system developed to connect
ports to interior of Russia
 Built across Siberian tundra to allow
access to resources

Oil, coal, and metals
Chernobyl
 Nuclear power plant explosion took
place in 1986
 Radiation poisoning is still affecting the
area today
Aral Sea Depletion
 Used to
be world’s
4th largest
land-locked
body of
water.
 Due to
irrigation
needs of
the Soviet
Union
WWII/Cold War Test Sites
 During the Cold War and WWII many
new weapons were developed
 In order to guarantee their
effectiveness, they needed to be tested
 Many repercussions are occurring still
today from the testing of biological,
nuclear, and chemical warfare.
Learning Task
 Read about Anthrax Island and respond
to the reflection questions.

Answer the questions on your warm-up paper
based on the quote below.
 We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to
conserve the environment so that we can bequeath
our children a sustainable world that benefits all.
Warm-up 2/17
 How does permafrost affect natural resources and
HEI in Russia and the Republics?
 Answer in 5 COMPLETE SENTENCES!
Early History
 Controlled by Vikings in 9th Century
 Taken by Mongolians in 13th Century
 17th Century – Russian Empire one of the
greatest and largest in known world
Early 20th Century
 WWI (1914-1918)
 Russia
fights on side of Allies (GB, France, US)
 Russian Revolution (1917)
 Forced
Czar Nicholas II to give up throne
 Russian Communist Party rises led by
Vladimir Lenin
Strict
government control of government and
society- based on ideas of Karl Marx
Soviet Era
 Russia becomes the USSR 1922
 Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics
 Joseph Stalin takes over after Lenin
 WWII (1939-1945)
 fought Nazi Germany on side of Allies
 Conditions in Soviet Union were increasingly
worse
 Gulag Labor Camps
 Falling economy
Soviet Era
 Cold War (1945-1991)
 Soviet
Union set up communism in
Eastern European neighbors
 Fear of democratic governments that
communism would spread world wide
called Cold War because both sides
competed for world influence with very
little violence
Fall of Communism
 Fall of the Soviet Union occurred in 1991
 15
different republics created
 12 joined the Commonwealth of
Independent States
Where in the World Wednesday?
Where in the World
Wednesday?
 St. Basil’s Cathedral
 Moscow, Russia
 Built in 1588 after Russia conquered
European lands.
 Modeled to look like flames rising from the
center of Moscow
 Taken from the Russian Orthodox church
under the rule of Communism
Warm-up 2/19
 How was the Cold War fought?
Origins of the Cold War
 U.S.-Soviet Relations to
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1945
Allies in World War II
Postwar Cooperation – the
U.N
Satellite States in Eastern
Europe
Occupation Zones in
Germany
Iron Curtain
coldwar
•Uneasy peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
•Competition for world dominance and global power.
•Fought on political and economic fronts rather than on
military battlefields---------Even though the threat of war was
always present.
•Defined America’s foreign policy from 1946 to 1989.
•It affected domestic politics and how Americans viewed the
world and themselves.
•Constant state of military preparedness and arms race
Propaganda war----Democracy vs Communism
US policy: Support nations threatened by Communism
N
A
T
O
Communistic
Warsaw Pact
Communistic
Warsaw Pact
map/cold war
The Bi-Polarization of Europe:
The Beginning of the Cold War
1950’s
Democracy vs. Communism
Bi-Polarization of the World
US, Allied Nations
and Allied colonies.
Soviet Union/China and
Allies……..
The Cold War: Roots of the Conflict
Soviet
Expansion:
· The Soviet
Union
occupied
most of
Eastern
Europe by
the end of
World War
II.
Satellite State
 When a nation is under the control of another.
 Ex. Part of Germany was under the control of the
Soviet Union.
 Other examples: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Romania and Bulgaria
The “Iron Curtain”
From Stettin in the Balkans, to Trieste in the
Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across
the Continent. Behind that line lies the ancient
capitals of Central and Eastern Europe.
-- Sir Winston Churchill, 1946
Truman Doctrine [1947]
1. Civil War in Greece.
2. Turkey under pressure from the USSR
for concessions in the Dardanelles.
3. The U. S. should support free peoples
throughout the world who were
resisting takeovers by armed
minorities or outside pressures…We
must assist free peoples to work out
their own destinies in their own way.
4. The U.S. gave Greece & Turkey $400
million in aid.
Marshall Plan [1948]
1. “European Recovery
Program.”
2. Secretary of State,
George Marshall
3. The U. S. should provide
aid to all European nations
that need it. This move
is not against any country or doctrine,
but against hunger, poverty, desperation,
and chaos.
4. $12.5 billion of US aid to Western
Europe extended to Eastern Europe &
USSR, [but this was rejected].
* The U.S. gave over $12 billion in aid to European countries
between 1948 and 1952, helping to improve their economies
and lessen the chance of communist revolutions.
map/cold war
1950’s
Containment:
Stop the
expansion of
Communism in
Asia and
Europe
US, Allied Nations
and Allied colonies.
Soviet Union/China and
Allies……..
Soviet Union
1918
Berlin
Blockade 19478
Eastern
Europe
1946
China
1949
Korean War
1950 to 1953
CONTAINMENT
Marshall Plan
Berlin Airlift
NATO
Korean War
Communist Expansion
A Chronology of Events
Focus on Berlin
 After World War II,
Germany was divided
into four zones,
occupied by French,
British, American, and
Soviet troops.
Occupation zones after
1945. Berlin is the
multinational area
within the Soviet zone.
Soviet blockade:
East Berlin
West
Germany
East
Germany
West Berlin
· In June of 1948, the
French, British and
American zones were
joined into the nation of
West Germany after the
Soviets refused to end
their occupation of
Germany.
· In response, the
Soviets cut off West
Berlin from the rest of
the world with a
blockade.
Eventual site of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Airlift
· President Truman
decided to avoid the
blockade by flying in
food and other supplies to
the needy people of West
Berlin.
· At times, over 5,000
tons of supplies arrived
daily.
Berlin Blockade & Airlift (194849)
North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (1949)
Military alliance to counter Soviet expansion.
 United States
 Luxemburg
 Belgium
 Netherlands
 Britain
 Norway
 Canada
 Portugal
 Denmark
 1952: Greece &
Turkey
 France
 Iceland
 Italy
 1955: West Germany
 1983: Spain
NATO
Warsaw Pact (1955)
Soviet Union and satellite states rival alliance to NATO
}
U. S. S. R.
}
East Germany
}
Albania
}
Hungary
}
Bulgaria
}
Poland
}
Czechoslovakia
}
Rumania
Mao Tse Tung
•Mao Tse Tung, defeats Chang Kai
Shek in the Chinese Civil War…..
•China became a communistic country.
•Chang Kai Shak is exiled to Taiwan.
•Mao Tse Tung becomes the
Communistic leader of China.
•US believed there was a communistic
plot to rule the world
NATO
Chang Kai Shek
•1950 to 1953, North
Korea invades South
Korea.
•North Korea was a
communist nation and
South Korea was a
democracy.
•First war of
“containment” policy to
stop communism
•“Police Action” not a
declared war
•President Truman leads
United Nations.
•General Douglas
MacArthur commands US
and UN troops.
•Called “forgotten war”.
Truman vs. MacArthur
•Truman fires General
MacArthur when he
advises Truman he would
use nuclear weapons
against the Chinese.
•Stalemate by 1953.
•Pres. Eisenhower negotiated
an end to war
•Divided at 38th parallel
•Communism contained
•Remains divided today
Spread of The cold War
•The world would now live with the threat of
nuclear war.
•Arms race between Soviet Union and U.S.
who could build the most nuclear weapons.
•U.S. would use nuclear weapons as a
“deterrent”
•Peace through strength……
•“nuclear diplomacy”
atomic bomb
The Arms Race:
A “Missile Gap?”
}
The Soviet Union
exploded its first
A-bomb in 1949.
}
Now there were
two nuclear
superpowers!
Brinkmanship
 Belief that only going to the brink of war would
protect the U.S. from going to war with the Soviet
Union.
 U.S. would threaten mass retaliation with Soviet
Union in order to try to get them to back off.
Suez Crisis
 Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser tried
to construct a dam on the Nile River.
 U.S. and Britain offered to pay for project
but Nasser began communicating with
Soviet Union and Recognized the People’s
Republic of China.
 Eisenhower administration withdrew its
offer.
Suez Crisis
 In Response, Nasser Nationalized the Suez Canal
making it under government control.
 Before it was managed by the British and French
and protected with British armed forces.
 This threatened the flow of Middle Eastern oil to
Europe.
Suez Crisis
 Britain and France teamed up with Israel to
try to get the land back without consulting the
U.S.
 President Eisenhower did not like this and
refused to support them.
 As a result of lack of U.S. support, Britain,
France, and Israel were forced to withdraw its
troops.
u
Eisenhower Doctrine
 Stated that the U.S.
would use force to help
any Middle Eastern
nation threatened by
communism.
CIA
 Central Intelligence Agency- 1947
 Intelligence gathering organization.
 1953 helped install a new government in Iran
and in 1954 same thing in Guatemala
 Both helped to place anticommunist leaders
in power and also created long term
resentment toward U.S.
The Race for Space
1957 Russians launch SPUTNIK I
Facts on
Sputnik
•Aluminum sphere, 23 inches in diameter
weighing 184 pounds with four steel
antennae emitting radio signals.
•Launched Oct. 4, 1957
•Stayed in orbit 92 days, until Jan. 4, 1958
1957 Russians launch SPUTNIK I
Effects on the
United States
•Americans fear a
Soviet attack with
missile technology
•Americans resolved to regain technological
superiority over the Soviet Union
•In July 1958, President Eisenhower created
NASA or National Space and Aeronautics Agency
•1958 --> National Defense Education Act
Effects of Sputnik on United States
Atomic Anxieties:
•“Duck-and-Cover Generation”
Atomic Testing:
•Between July 16, 1945 and Sept. 23, 1992, the
United States conducted 1,054 official nuclear
tests, most of them at the Nevada Test Site.
Americans began building
underground bomb shelters
and cities had underground
fallout shelters.
Cold War Technology
 1948- Microwave
 1960- Communications
Satellite
 1946- Computer
 1070s- Smoke Detector
 1948- Hang Glider
 1980s- Global
 1958- Nuclear Energy
Plant
Positioning System
Cold War at home
•Red Scare was Americans
response to the fear of
Communism
•Senator Joseph McCarthy
accused 205 US Govt. officials
of being Communist.
•McCarthyism to destroy or
assassinate one’s character
without proof and it ruined the
careers of many Americans.
Became a witch hunt that led to Americans
pledging a “loyalty oath” to the United States…….
red scare
•Soviets detonate their
first atomic bomb…..
•The question is raised,
where did they get the
technology the bomb?
•Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg would be
accused of giving away
atomic bomb secrets.
•Charged with
espionage they would
be found guilty and
executed in 1953.
NATO
red scare3
•1947 investigation led to prison sentences for
contempt known as the Hollywood Ten.
•Blacklisted: a list of persons who are under suspicion, disfavor, or
censure, or who are not to be hired, served, or otherwise accepted.
McCarthyism
 Claimed 205 communists
working for State
Department
 Attacked wealthy &
privileged—popular
appeal
 Even Eisenhower
wouldn’t challenge him
 Army hearings in 1954
televised

McCarthy exposed as a bully
(“reckless cruelty”