GEOG101: World Regional Geography

3a. Describe Russia's climate and physical landscape and how they have influenced the human landscape

• Why is Russia dominated by the Type D climate?
• Although Russia has mountain ranges, including active volcanoes, describe the terrain that is most common in this vast region.
  

It is hard to overestimate Russia's vastness. Its northern latitude and size contribute to its Type D climate, also known as a continental climate, which dominates the realm. Because most of Russia is far from the moderating effects of oceans, temperatures are extreme, with freezing winters and hot summers. Precipitation is variable.
 
Russia has large contiguous areas with slight variations in elevation, although its physical landscape ranges from Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, to Mount Elbrus, a dormant volcano in the Caucasus Mountains. Forests, grasses, and wetlands cover Russia's extensive plains, steppes, and plateaus. Tundra covers its northern extent because some of Russia extends into the Arctic.
 
To review, see Russia's Physical Geography and Climate, Russia and the Republics: Physical Geography, and Settlement and Development Challenges.
 

3b. Relate the concepts of relative and absolute location, and distance decay to Russia and its territorial aspirations

• Given its vast land area, how did the czars convince their subjects to minimize their cultural differences?
• What were the political cores of the Russian Empire?
  

As the largest territorial empire in the world, it is not surprising that Russia contains so many different ethnic groups. Its population speaks many languages and practices several religions. Most of its people connect their identity with their ethnic group rather than to Russia.
 
The czars engaged in the practice of Russification to convert their subjects into Russians via language instruction and conversion to Russian Orthodoxy. This attempt to spread the Russian identity throughout the provinces has proven less successful the farther people live from Moscow, the center of power. This is an example of distance decay.
 
St. Petersburg and Moscow were the political cores of imperial Russia. Peter the Great created St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) in the early 18th century. He moved the capital there from Moscow to rival the splendor and glamor of European cities. Although it was no longer the capital, Moscow remained an important city. Throughout the imperial period, Russia expanded east to the Pacific Ocean, south to the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, and west to Poland.
 
To review, see Russia's Population Density, Settlement and Development Challenges, and Russian History and Expansion.
 

3c. Describe Soviet Russia's approach to socialism and how it impacted its economic development

• How did the Soviet Union implement socialism?
• What role does the government play in a socialist economy?
  

Socialism encompasses a wide range of economic and social systems. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union forced citizens to convert large family farms and privately-held land and businesses to collective or state control.
 
This process of forced collectivization caused the devastating famine of 1932–1933, when nearly four million people starved to death in the Ukrainian SSR alone. All in all, the Soviet command economy eliminated competition and allocated inputs and output quantities. Stalin also executed millions of people who did not agree with him.
 
To review, see Russian History and Expansion, Economics and Development in the Soviet Union, Socialism vs. Communism, and Famine, Subjugation and Nuclear Fallout: Russia and Ukraine.
 

3d. Describe Russia's pattern of human settlement in terms of the core-periphery concept and how it has impacted the environment

• What are the types of pollution associated with industrial and urban activity in Russia?
• What environmental problems are the taiga and tundra areas of Russia experiencing?
  

Russia's vast territory means there are more opportunities for environmental damage to occur and a greater chance the damage will go unnoticed or be ignored. Sewage and chemical pollutants from industrial centers and urban areas have contaminated the air, waterways, and water bodies, including the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea (the world's largest inland body of water by area), and Lake Baikal (the world's oldest and deepest lake). Despite its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, proposed oil and gas exploration also threatens Lake Baikal's biodiversity.
 
Oil exploration and production pollution, including oil spills, have contaminated the Siberian tundra and taiga environments. Nuclear waste is dumped in the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea. Given their remoteness, concern for these vast ecosystems and the humans who live there have only recently received attention.
 
Coal-burning utilities, mining, and smelting activities in and around Siberian cities reduce air quality. The smog in Krasnoyarsk, a Siberian city on the Yenisei River, causes Black Sky emergencies. Overfishing depletes fish stocks in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. These water bodies are the source of the increasingly rare caviar-producing wild sturgeon.
 
To review, see Russia's Physical Geography and Climate, Settlement and Development Challenges, Examples of Human Environmental Damage, and Russia: Environmental Problem Areas.
 

3e. Summarize the methods the government used to impose a Russian and Soviet identity on the population and its long-term effects on the human landscape

• What is Russification?
• What did the Republics of the USSR represent?
• How did the Soviets hope to dilute ethnic minorities?
  

Initially, the Czarist government of Russia attempted to instill a Russian identity in the various ethnic groups that lived in its territories. This was intended to be accomplished by teaching the Russian language and converting the people to Russian Orthodoxy. However, these attempts at Russification were not successful.
 
Rather than teach ethnic groups the Russian language and convert them to Russian Orthodoxy as the czars had attempted, the Soviet central government organized them into units they could control from Moscow. The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs). The largest, the Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, included the area the central government considered ethnically Russian. The remaining SSRs represented separate ethnic groups, such as the Georgians, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, and Uzbeks.
 
These SSRs had little autonomy. The central government sought to dilute these ethnic groups by sending ethnic Russians into these SSRs. Members of these ethnic groups were also exiled to the hinterlands to separate them from the historic homeland of their people. Thus, it is common to find ethnic Russians who have lived in Kazakhstan (the former Kazakh SSR) and ethnic Ukrainians who have lived in Siberia (part of the former Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) for generations.
 
To review, see Russia and the Republics: Physical Geography, Russian Multiculturalism and Tension, Map of Soviet Nationalities by Republic, and Sovietization.
 

Unit 3 Vocabulary

This vocabulary list includes terms listed above that students need to know to successfully complete the final exam for the course.

• Black Sea
• Caspian Sea
• Caucasus Mountains
• collectivization
• command economy
• continental climate
• distance decay
• Kazakhstan
• Lake Baikal
• Mount Elbrus
• Russification
• socialism
• steppe
• Type D climate
• UNESCO World Heritage Site
• USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)