Siberia

Siberia (Russian: Сиби́рь, tr.: Sibir) is a vast geographical region located in the East Asian part of the Russian Federation, which is why it is also called Asian Russia, East Russia or East Russia; Due to its geographical location with respect to the Asian continent, it is occasionally called North Asia, North Asia, Norasia or North Asia.

It is a region that stretches from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean and to the south by Kazakhstan, Mongolia, North Korea, and China. The Yenisei River conditionally divides Siberia into two parts, western and eastern. It does not represent any political-administrative division, since it is made up of several districts of the Russian Federation.

Siberia represents approximately 76% of the territory of the Russian Federation (13.1 million square kilometers), with a very low population density, being home to only 28% of the population of Russia, about 36 million people approximately. This is equivalent to an average population density of about three people per square kilometer (similar to the density of Australia), making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth.

The Siberian bear is the most abundant and dangerous predatory mammal in the area.

Toponymy

Some sources say that its name comes from Turkish for "sleeping land". Another version says that it comes from the tribal name of the Sibirs, Eurasian nomads, later assimilated to the Siberian Tatars. Pamela Kyle Crossley states that the Russians named the region Siberia after the sibirs/xibe. The modern meaning of the name appeared in the Russian language after the conquest of the Siberian Khanate.

Geography

Siberia is generally considered to be divided into three geologically distinct parts, separated by the Yenisei and Lena rivers:

• Western Siberia (2 427 000 km)²), immediately east of the Ural mountains, it is a vast plain of 2000 km wide, of low and poorly drained land, where the swamps, lakes and swamps are very common. The coastal north end of the ocean Arctic Glacial Arctic very little illuminated by the sunlight has a bioma of tundra, immediately south of the tundra begins a forest of conifers (abetos, piceas) and already south of the 50°N parallel begins the presence of a dense foresta of deciduous latifolias forming the taiga of Western Siberia.
• Central Siberia (4 122 000 km2), east of the Yeniséi River, which culminates between 300 and 1200 m of altitude, cut from cannons or deep lakes like Lake Baikal. In the south, there is a high mountainous system formed by the Altái and the Sayanes Mountains with peaks of 3000 to more than 4000 meters.
• East Siberia, also located in the Russian Far East (more than 6 million km2), east of the Lena River, is constituted by several mountainous massifs that end east in the Bering Strait and the Kamchatka peninsula where active volcanoes abound. Its predominant ecoregion is the taiga of East Siberia.

Climate and Biomes

Siberian taiga.

Siberian tundra.

Most of Siberia is made up of forested areas (taigas) and swamps where a very extreme subarctic climate prevails, with very short summers and long, harsh winters with little sunshine. The northernmost parts of Siberia are characterized by the tundra biome with extremely cold weather, easily reaching -50°C (in Eastern Siberia, more precisely Verkhoyansk, temperatures below -68°C have been recorded). Large Siberian areas have permanently frozen soil or permafrost, mainly in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, a situation that makes it difficult to build and introduce hydraulic networks in the scattered human settlements.

Biomass in Russia.
Polar desert tundra tundra alpine taiga Mountain forest
temperate latifolite forests temperate dry

Average Novosibirsk climate parameters, the most populous city of Siberia
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Average temperature (°C)	-12.2	-10.3	-3.6	8.5	16.5	24.0	25.7	22.2	15.3	6.8	-5.9	-10.9	7.0
Average temperature (°C)	-16.2	-14.7	-7.2	3.2	11.6	18.2	20.2	17.0	11.5	3.4	-6.0	-14.3	2.4
Temp. medium (°C)	-20.1	-19.1	-11.8	-1.7	5.6	12.3	14.7	11.7	6.4	0.0	-9.1	-16.4	-2.3
Total precipitation (mm)	19	14	15	24	36	58	72	66	44	38	32	24	442
Source:

Hydrography

Lake Baikal.

The Ob River is the westernmost of the Siberian rivers. It forms an extensive basin together with its tributary the Irtysh.

The Yenisei River is the main river in Siberia and one of the largest in Asia, with a length of about 4,093 km; its basin covers about 2,580,000 km².

The Lena River (in Russian Лена), is the tenth longest river in the world and the one with the ninth longest riverbank. It rises at an altitude of 1,640 m in the Baikal Mountains, south of the Central Siberian Plateau, 20 km west of Lake Baikal.

The Kolyma River is located in northeastern Siberia. It is 2,129 km long and drains a basin of 679,934 km². Which makes it the sixth largest in Russia.

At 636 km long, 80 km wide and 1,637 m deep, Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake in Asia and the deepest in the world.

Lake Elgygytgyn is located in northeast Siberia. It is approximately 15 km in diameter and 175 m deep, and is located in a meteorite impact crater created 3.6 million years ago in the Pliocene. The diameter of the crater is 18 km.

History

Refugees in the Transiberian Railway, 1918.

Siberia was occupied by different groups of nomads such as Yenets, Nenets, Huns, Uyghurs, Tunguses, Votiaks, Komis, Yakuts, Tuvans. The area was conquered by the Mongols in the 13th century and the autonomous Siberian Khanate was eventually created. In the 16th century, groups of traders and Cossacks began to enter the area. During the government of Ivan IV the Terrible (exactly in 1558), he granted the Stroganov family a large area on the banks of the Kama River and the privilege of recruiting soldiers, obtaining ammunition and locating fortresses. Alarmed by Russian activity in his lands, Prince Kuchum of Siberia sent his nephew Majmetkul with an army to plunder Russian domains. Semyon Stroganov wasted no time in calling on two Cossack leaders, Yermak Timofeyevich and Ivan Koltso, and placing them at the head of an army of a thousand soldiers. In 1581 Yermak crossed the Ural Mountains and defeated Majmetkul's hordes. Then the Russian army began to establish fortifications in the remote East. This is how cities like Mangazeia, Tara, Yeniseysk and Tobolsk appeared, the latter being declared the capital of Siberia. By the middle of the 17th century the territory controlled by the Russians had extended as far as the Pacific Ocean. During the 17th and 18th centuries the Russian population in Siberia remained small, due both to the harshness of the climate and to the enormous difficulties in communications. Only a few exploratory missions and traders inhabited Siberia.

Tunguska event.

The second half of the XIX century saw the first waves of Russian immigrants, mostly peasants. Several events could explain the migratory movement to Siberia: the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the excess population in European Russia, and especially the Trans-Siberian Railway. Another factor that contributed to this wave was the shipment to this region of prisoners from European Russia or from territories occupied by the Russians, such as Poland.

The first big change in Siberia was the Trans-Siberian Railway, built in 1891-1903. This brought Siberia closer to the rest of Russia and was promoted by Tsar Nicholas II.

During Stalin's rule, a series of prison camps, known as the Gulag, were used for forced labor. This became so prevalent that "Siberia" it came to be regarded as synonymous with exile and punishment.

During World War II most of the industrial activities were transferred to Siberia in order to protect them from the attacks of the German army. Siberia has many natural resources and during the XX century (thanks to the five-year plans) these were exploited, and with it, Industrial cities arose in various parts of the region.

Administrative division

Geographically, Siberia includes the Ural, Siberian, and Far Eastern federal districts. Historically, the Russian Far East is considered a segment of Siberia.

Siberia's political division in federal subjects.

Siberia Federal District Russian Geographical Siberia Historical Siberia (and Siberia according to numerous non-Russian sources).

Main Cities

The main Siberian cities are:

• Barnaoul
• Cheliábinsk
• Ekaterimburg
• Irkutsk
• Jabárovsk
• Kémerovo
• Krasnoyarsk
• Novokuznetsk
• Novosibirsk
• Omsk
• Tiumén
• Tomsk
• Vladivostok

Demographics

Graphics comparing the growth of the nine largest cities in Siberia during the centuryXX..

Siberia has a total population of approximately 38.7 million (2005 est.). Approximately 70% of the inhabitants of Siberia live in urban areas; the most important are located in the southern part, along the Trans-Siberian railway line. Small apartments abound in most Siberian cities. Many people in rural areas live in simple, but spacious, wooden houses.

Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia, with a population of about 1.5 million, followed by Yekaterinburg (1.3 million), Omsk (1.1 million), Chelyabinsk (1.07 million), Krasnoyarsk (0.91 million), Barnaul (0.60 million), Irkutsk (0.59 million), Vladivostok (0.6 million), Kemerovo (0.52 million), Tyumen (0.51 million), Tomsk (0.48 million), Nizhny Tagil (0.39 million), Kurgan (0.36 million), Ulan-Ude (0.36 million), Chita (0.32 million).

Ethnic composition and languages

Most Siberians (89%) are Russians and Ukrainians, with majority Slavs in most "oblasts" and "krai", but in certain republics (for example Tuva), the Slavic population is only 20%.

Most non-Slavic groups are of Turkic origin. The main linguistic minorities are Mongols (600,000 speakers), Uralics, Samoyeds, Ugrics, Yukaghirs (approximately 100,000 speakers), Manchu-Tungus (40,000 speakers), Chucoto-Camchadales (25,000 speakers), Eskimo-Aleuts (approximately 2,000 speakers), and other isolated groups, such as Ketes and Nivjis.

Religion

Transfiguration Cathedral in Jabárovsk.

As everywhere in Russia, religion plays an important role in Siberian life. There are a variety of beliefs throughout Siberia including Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The majority confession is the Russian Orthodox Church. However, the native religion dates back thousands of years. The vast territory of Siberia has many different local traditions of gods. These include: Ak Ana, Anapel, Bugady Musun, Kara Khan, Khaltesh-Anki, Kini'je, Kutkh, Nga, Nu'tenut, Numi-Torem, Numi-Turum, Pon, Pugu, Todote, Toko'yoto, Tomam, Xaya Iccita, Zonget.

Economy

Despite having cities with more than 1 million inhabitants, and because of how remote and isolated the region is from the capital of Russia (Moscow), the industries in Siberia are practically related to the primary economy, where there are some of the world's largest deposits of nickel, gold, lead, molybdenum, diamonds, sapphires, silver and zinc, as well as vast and unexplored reserves of oil and natural gas, most of which are in the cold and remote eastern region. Siberia is extraordinarily rich in minerals, since it contains mines of almost all economically valuable metals (largely due to the absence of Quaternary glaciation).

Agriculture cannot be developed in northern Siberia due to permanent frosts and frozen soils (permafrost). However, in the southwest, where the soils are highly fertile black earths and the climate is somewhat more moderate, there are extensive crops of wheat, barley, rye, and potatoes. Cattle thrive in the pastures. Siberia has the largest forests in the world, so timber is an important source of income, especially since the forests in the east are able to recover quickly.

Transportation

The Trans-Siberian railway was inaugurated on July 21, 1904, after thirteen years of work. With an extension of 9288 kilometers, it connects Moscow with the Pacific Ocean of Russia, more precisely with Vladivostok (located in the Sea of Japan, and whose meaning in Russian is 'Power over the East'), crossing the largest part of what was once Soviet Asia. This route, which crosses eight time zones and whose journey lasts about 7 days, is the longest rail service in the world.

In terms of vehicular crossings, there is the Trans-Siberian highway, a federal highway that connects Saint Petersburg with Vladivostok passing through Moscow, which extends for 11,000 kilometers of paved route, thus being the longest national highway in the world.

Air transport in Siberia is constant despite the harshness of the climate, with its main cities equipped with airports suitable for the climatic conditions of the area such as the Yekaterinburg-Koltsovo Airport, considered the third most important airport in Russia after those of Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Culture

• Languages: Russian - Yenishian languages - Chucoto-camchatcas languages - paleosiberian languages.
• Sport: Tomtosk, FC Ural Ekaterimburg,FC Novosibirsk, Tiumén, Yenisey Krasnoyarsk, SKA-Jabarovsk, Luch-Energiya Vladivostok (floor), Enisey Krasnomobilyarsk, Spartak Primorje, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, Admiral Vlad