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The enormous Russian region known as Siberia (Russian: Сибирь, common English transliterations: Sibir’, Sibir) occupies Eurasia's northeastern quadrant. It covers an area of 13,488,400 square kilometers (5,207,900 square miles) and makes up more than three quarters of Russia. It is a fourth bigger than Canada, the world's second largest country. It extends from the Ural Mountains on the west to the Pacific Ocean on the east. From south to north it spans an empty realm from Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China to the Arctic Ocean. It is empty because, though Siberia includes 23 percent of Eurasian territory, it claims less than 1 percent of the continent's population.
Geography
Siberia falls into four major geographic regions, all of great extent. In the west, abutting the Ural Mountains, is the huge West Siberian Plain, drained by the Ob and Yenisey rivers, varying little in relief, and containing wide tracts of swampland. East of the Yenisey River is central Siberia, a vast area that consists mainly of plains and the Central Siberian Plateau. Farther east the basin of the Lena River separates central Siberia from the complex series of mountain ranges, upland massifs, and intervening basins that make up northeastern Siberia (i.e., the Russian Far East). The smallest of the four regions is the Baikal area, which is centred on Lake Baikal in the south-central part of Siberia.
Siberian People
To many Westerners the name evokes a popular misconception that Siberian settlers are exiles or forced laborers. It is true that Siberia became a place of exile during the early 1700s and remained that for long after, but most Siberian settlers have been free migrants. Between 1885 and 1914, 4 million Slavic peasants sought refuge in Siberia. Almost all of them—and the majority of those afterward—settled in the southern tier along the main transportation routes. The rest of Siberia had a population density of less than one person per square mile (0.5 person per square kilometer), a condition that remains true.
Most Siberians are Russians and Russified Ukrainians and Belarusians. Ethnic Russians are descended from Slavs who lived in Eastern Europe several hundred years ago. Such Mongol and Turkic groups as Buryats, Tuvinians, and Yakuts lived in Siberia originally, and descendants of these peoples still live there. Other ethnic groups include: Evenks, Chukchis, Koryaks, Yukaghirs.
About 70% of Siberia's people live in cities. Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia, with a population of about 1.5 million. Tobolsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk and Omsk are the older, historical centers. With a lowest record temperature of -71.2 Celsius, Oymyakon has the distinction of being the coldest town on Earth.
Siberian History
Some theories say that the name Sibir, or Siberia, meaning "sleeping land," comes from a Mongol dialect. Another version is that this name was tribal name of Sibirs, Eurasian nomads, later assimilated to Siberian Tatars. The modern meaning of the name appeared in Russian language after the conquest of Siberia Khanate.
Findings made in the late 1990s indicate that Siberia was inhabited as early as 300,000 years ago, rather than 40,000 years ago, as previously thought. In the historic period, southern Siberia frequently served as the point of departure for several nomadic groups, such as Huns, Mongols, and Manchus, who conquered and lost immense empires. Among the political entities emerging after the breakup of the Mongol state of the Golden Horde in the mid-15th century was the Tatar Khanate of Sibir.
The growing power of Russia to the east began to undermine the Khanate in the 16th century. First groups of traders and Cossacks began to enter the area, and then Russian army began to set up forts further and further east. The towns like Mangazeya, Tara, Yeniseysk, and Tobolsk sprang up, the latter being declared the capital of Siberia. By the mid-17th century, the Russian-controlled areas had been extended to the Pacific.
The impact of Russian expansion upon the indigenous peoples was twofold; the smaller and more primitive tribes succumbed to exploitation and imported diseases, while larger groups such as the Sakha and Buryat adjusted better and began to profit from the material benefits of colonization. The Russians generally did not interfere with their internal institutions and way of life, and most of the native inhabitants eventually became nominal Christians.
Siberia remained a mostly unexplored and uninhabited area. During the following few centuries, only a few exploratory missions and traders inhabited Siberia. The other group that was sent to Siberia consisted of prisoners exiled from western Russia.
The first great change to Siberia was the Trans-Siberian railway, constructed in 1891 - 1916. It linked Siberia more closely to the rapidly-industrializing Russia of Nicholas II. Modern farming methods were introduced into
southern Siberia to grow cereal grains and produce dairy products, and coal mining was also started in several locations.
During the Russian Civil War (1917–20) an anti-Bolshevik government headed by Admiral Alexander Kolchak held much of Siberia until 1920; virtually all of Siberia was reincorporated into the new Soviet state by 1922, however.
From the first Soviet Five-Year Plan (1928–32), industrial growth was considerable, with coal-mining and iron-and-steel complexes begun in the Kuznetsk Coal Basin and along the line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, partly through the use of forced labor. Forced-labor camps spread throughout Siberia during the 1930s, the
most important being the camp complexes in the extreme northeast and along the lower Yenisey River, whose inmates were used mostly in mining operations.
During World War II, owing to the evacuation of many factories from the western portions of the Soviet Union, Siberia (together with the Urals) became the industrial backbone of the Soviet war effort for a few years.
The late 1950s and '60s saw major industrial development take place, notably the opening up of large oil and natural gas fields in western Siberia and the construction of giant hydroelectric stations at locations along the Angara, Yenisey, and Ob rivers. A network of oil and gas pipelines was built between the new fields and the Urals, and new industries were also established, such as aluminum refining and cellulose pulp making. The construction of the BAM (Baikal-Amur Magistral) railroad between Ust-Kut, on the Lena River, and Komsomolsk-na-Amure, on the Amur, a distance of 2,000 miles (3,200 km), was completed in 1980.
Modern Siberia
The people have long called Siberia the "future" or "cupboard" of the nation, and the cupboard teems with raw materials. Despite long winters with subzero temperatures, about a tenth of Siberia's mineral and forest wealth has been tapped and is under development by prospectors. Some 200 industrial cities and towns, more than 30 with populations of more than 100,000 cropped up throughout the region during the 20th century. Largest industrial centers such as Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk have a population of over a million.
The mineral resources of Siberia are enormous; particularly notable are its deposits of coal, petroleum, natural gas, diamonds, iron ore, and gold. Both mining and manufacturing underwent rapid development in Siberia in the second half of the 20th century, and steel, aluminum, and machinery are now among the chief products. Agriculture is confined to the more southerly portions of Siberia and produces wheat, rye, oats, and sunflowers.
Today's Siberia is one of the most dynamically developing region of Russian Federation. With the fall of the USSR, Siberia became more open to foreign travel and trade, while local Siberians sought to distance themselves from the Russian government in Moscow. Being developed for so long time as a functional appendage of the center, Siberia is now endeavoring to establish its own systems of foreign trade and international economic relations aimed at compensating regional economic disparities.
- Resources cited:
- "Siberia." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 10 Feb. 2006 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9067598>.
- "Siberia." Britannica Student Encyclopedia. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 10 Feb. 2006 <http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-9277053>.
- "Siberia." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia®. 2005. Columbia University Press 17 Feb. 2006 <http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Siberia>.
- "Siberia." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2006. 17 Feb. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia>.
