Today
• Russia & neighbors
Region defined
Site, situation, & scale
Physical geography Agriculture
Natural Resources
Historical development of Russian
Empire
The USSR and beyond
© T. M. Whitmore
• Europe
Last Time
Economic geographies
Cultural geographies
Political geographies
© T. M. Whitmore
Russia & neighbors
• Region defined
• Site, situation, & scale
© T. M. Whitmore
Climate & Vegetation
• Köppen zone “E”
Tundra
• Köppen zone “D”
Role of westerlies
Continentality
Permafrost
Taiga or boreal forest
• Köppen zone “B”
Steppe lands
© T. M. Whitmore
Forest cover
Degree of Human Influence on the biosphere
© CIESIN
Landforms
• E Russian Plain
• Ural Mountains
• W Siberian lowlands
• C Siberian plateau
• E Siberian highlands
• C Asian mountains
• Caucasus mountains
© T. M. Whitmore
Environmental problems
• Industrial pollution
• Soil depletion
• Radioactive pollution
• Acid rain
© T. M. Whitmore
Agriculture
• Spatially limited by climate
• Environmental problems
• USSR solution
• “Virgin” lands program in 1950s
• Realities of post-Soviet Union
agriculture
© T. M. Whitmore
Collectivization
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Only freed from serfdom in 1861, Russia’s peasants
(80% of the population) were forcibly collectivized in
the 1930s to allow the introduction of mechanization
and state extraction of grain to feed industrial
workers.
Millions died in subsequent famines before grain
production began to rise with improved technology.
© T. M. Whitmore
© T. M. Whitmore
"Virgin Lands" by Fedor Malaev,
painted in 1958
Atlas of the biosphere
Permafrost
Natural Resources
• Fossil fuels
Coal & Iron
Donbas (Donetz in Ukraine)
Urals
Kuzbas (Kuznetsk Basin Siberia)
Oil and Gas
Caucasus (and Caspian)
Volga-Urals
Western Siberia
© T. M. Whitmore
Oil
Gas
Coal
iron
Natural Resources II
• Mineral Resources
Copper, aluminum, nickel
Diamonds, gold, titanium
• Problems
Much is in Siberia
Soviet-style central planning
Much is in new states not in
Russia
© T. M. Whitmore
Oil
Gas
Coal
iron
Historical development of
the Russian Empire
• Early Slavic state – 800 AD
• Invasion of Genghis Kahn and
Tartars 1240 AD
• Rise of Muscovy and the Ivans
• Great Russian imperial expansion
1500 – 1815 (out of “European
Russia”)
• Additions 1815 – 1917
Trans-Siberian RR
© T. M. Whitmore
1300-1450
1500-1800
1450-1500
1500-1800
1800s
Trans-Siberian Railway
1861-1916
Outcomes of Russian
imperialism/colonialism
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400+ yrs of territorial
expansion/conquest/colonialism!
Coincides with W European age of colonization
By 1900 Russia largest contiguous empire on
earth But,
Huge pop ~ 130 m, but only 50% Russian
Static and backward economy
Held together by force, the RR, and thin
wedge of Russian settlement
© T. M. Whitmore
Russian Peasant Girls
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944)
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Church of the Resurrection in Kostroma
in the northern part of European Russia
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
The Emir of Bukhara
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
A merchant at the
Samarkand market
Nomadic Kazakhs on the Steppe
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Dagestani Couple
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Russian Settlers in the Borderlands
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Turkmen Camel Driver
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Hay Harvest
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
Break of Czarist Empire
leading to Creation of USSR
• Began with the 1905 Bolshevik
Revolution
Urged reform along a Communist
model: a state and class-based
ideology, single-party rule, and a
command economy
Urged overthrow of Tsar
Uprising failed, Tsar made minor
reforms
© T. M. Whitmore
The Soviet Union 1921 - 1989
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Russian Revolution and fall of Tsarist Empire
(1917-1920)
Creation of 15 so-called “independent” Soviet
Socialist Republics (SSRs)
Russian SSR has 21 internal “Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republics”
Most SSRs and ASSRs are different “nations”
(ethnicities)
Centripetal forces within USSR
© T. M. Whitmore
Key Soviet Policies
• Suppression of dissent, Russification and
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displacement of minorities
Core-periphery relationships between
Moscow and other regions
Prices, wages and production set by the
state
Collectivization of agriculture and
promotion of heavy industry, WWII
Supported allied communist and other
nations in the Cold War
© T. M. Whitmore
The Gulag where >1 million died. These included a majority of
the Volga Germans, the Buddhist Kalmyks, and Muslim groups
such as the Chechens, Ingush, Karachai, Balkars, Crimean Tatars
and Meskhetians.
A policy of Russification designed to promote integration
encouraged Russians to settle in areas populated by other
ethnicities. One legacy is the presence of large Russian minorities
in several post-Soviet states.
Rapid Soviet industrialization was focused in the center of the country (far from
Nazi Germany) and relied on Russia’s rich mineral resources. Many resources
are remote from populations and markets, primarily in the west.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the
Soviet System
• Permitted rapid industrialization and the
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rise of living standards, but still lower
than the West
Inefficient relative to capitalist
economies and overly focused on heavy
industry
An enormous area with a relatively small
population
Unable to suppress ethnic nationalism
© T. M. Whitmore
USSR (1921 - 1989)
• Forces of devolution
Poor economy
Poor agriculture
Ethnic & civil divisions
Cold war and Afghanistan
© T. M. Whitmore
Collapse of USSR 1989
• Margins pull out
• Russian minorities in former SSRS
• New demands for ethnic autonomy
• Futures of Russia and its Neighbors
© T. M. Whitmore