Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  • describe Russia's climate and physical landscape and how they have influenced the human landscape;
  • relate the concepts of relative and absolute location, and distance decay to Russia and its territorial aspirations;
  • describe Soviet Russia's approach to socialism and how it impacted its economic development;
  • describe Russia's pattern of human settlement in terms of the core-periphery concept and how it has impacted the environment; and
  • 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.