2. Introduction to the Region
Former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
Cold War versus U.S.-led Western bloc
Split in 1991 into 15 independent nations
Russian Federation
14 other countries comprising “The Near Abroad”
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
Economic Association
Russia and 11 of the former Soviet states
Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania joined the EU in 2004
Fluidity in Delineating Region
Trends Toward Political Fragmentation and Decentralization
3.
4. 5.1 Area and Population
Largest World Region
Area of 8.5 Million Square Miles
Region Spans 11 Time Zones
Regional Population of 282 Million (2011)
Russia 142.8 Million
Ukraine 45.7 Million
Uzbekistan 28.5 Million
Vast Region but Sparsely Populated
Average Population Density of 32 per square mile
Rates of Population Change
1.8% growth among Islamic Central Asian countries
0.4% loss in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus
9. 5.2.1 Roles of Climates and Vegetation
Extreme Continental Climate
Severe winter cold but warm/hot summers
Lowest official temperature ever recorded in Northern Hemisphere
at Siberian settlement of Verkhoyansk (-90 degrees F)
Short Growing Seasons (average 150-day frost-free season)
Aridity and Drought (less than 20 inches avg annual precipitation)
Permafrost
Frozen ground that makes construction difficult
Buildings and Pipelines must be elevated and insulated
Land Use / Agriculture
Russian taiga is the largest continuous area of forest on earth
Wheat, Sugar Beets, Sunflowers, Livestock in the black-earth belt
of the steppes
Cotton in Irrigated Areas of Central Asia
10. Comparison of Latitude and Area with North America
80% of this
region’s area is
farther north
than any
point in the
conterminous
United States
17. 5.2.2 Role of Rivers
Rivers formed natural passageways
Used for Trade, Conquest, and Colonization
Helped Russians advance from the Urals to the Pacific
in less than a century
Rivers drain into numerous oceans and seas
Volga-Don Canal
Major link in the inland waterway system
Connected the White Sea & Baltic Sea in the north
with the Black Sea & Caspian Sea in the south
Series of 13 Locks
20. 5.2.3 Role of Topography
Plains typify the region west of the Yenisey River
Ural Mountains
Low, narrow range separating Europe from Asia
Average elevation of less than 2,000 feet
West Siberian Plain
One of the flattest areas on earth
Waterlogged country underlain by permafrost
Tremendous flooding
Central Siberian Uplands
Between Yenisey and Lena Rivers (1,000 to 1,500 ft)
Mountainous Southern Rim of Region
Caucasus, Pamir, Tien Shan, and Altai Mountains
21. 5.3.1 A Babel of Languages
Complex cultural and linguistic mosaic
30 Major Ethnic Groups
More than 100 Languages Spoken
Main Language Families
Indo-European
Slavic Russian, Belarusian & Ukrainian
Romance Moldovan (Romanian)
Armenian
Altaic (Turkic) Kazakh, Kyrghyz, Turkmenian, Uzbek
Caucasian (Kartvelian)
Uralic (Finno-Ugric)
Proto-Asiatic (Chukotko-Kamchatkan)
23. 5.3.2 Vikings, Byzantines, and Tatars
Vikings
Slavic tribes came under the influence of Viking
adventurers known as Rus or Varangians
Rise of Kiev in 9th Century
Byzantines
Kievan Russia had close contact with Constantinople
Accepted Christian faith from Byzantines
Orthodox Christianity became a fixture of Russian life
Moscow becomes the “Third Rome”
Tatars
In 1237, Batu Khan brought all Russian principalities
except Novgorod under Tatar rule
Decline of Tatar power in the 15th century
24. Religions of Russia and the Near Abroad
Today, Russia has 4 official religions:
Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism
26. 5.3.3 The Empire of the Russians
The Russian Empire
Lasted from the 15th Century until the 20th Century
Immense land empire built around core of Moscow
Expansion under the Tsars
Ivan the Great (reigned 1462-1505)
Northward thrust; Annexed Novgorod
Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584)
Eastward conquest giving Russia control over the Volga
Peter the Great (1682-1725)
Defeated the Swedes to gain a foothold on the Baltic Sea
St. Petersburg established as Russia’s “Window on the West”
Catherine the Great (1762-1796)
Secured a frontage on the Black Sea
27. 5.3.3 The Empire of the Russians (contd.)
Eastward Expansion of Russian Empire
Cossack expeditions reached the Pacific in 1639
Continued down west coast of North America to Fort Ross in
California (1812-1841)
Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 for 2 cents per acre
and withdrew from North America
During the 19th and early 20th Centuries, Russian tsars
annexed the Amur region, the Caucasus, and Turkestan
Soviet Policy of Russificiation
Effort to implant Russian culture in non-Russian regions
and to make non-Russians more like Russians
Policy was generally a failure because of strong
nationalist sentiments throughout the Soviet Union
28. 5.3.4 Russia & Soviet Union: Revolution & War
Russian Triumphs over Powerful Invaders
King Charles XII of Sweden – 1709
Napoleon I of France – 1812
Adolf Hitler – WWII
Keys to Success
Environmental rigors that invaders faced
Overwhelming distances
Defenders’ love of their homeland
Willing to lose great numbers of soldiers in combat
“Scorched Earth” strategy to protect the motherland
29. 5.3.4 Russia & Soviet Union: Revolution & War
Russian Revolution of 1917
Protest against sacrifice of Russian forces during WWI
Overthrew Nicholas II, last of the Romanov tsars
Bolshevik Revolution
Led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
Bolshevik faction of Communist Party seized control
Establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922
World War II
USSR allied with France and Britain vs. Germany
Relocation of Soviet industries eastward
20 million Soviet lives lost, considerable damage
30. 5.4.1 The Communist Economic System
Marxism
Soviet economic system was an application of the economic
and social ideas of German philosopher Karl Marx
Command Economy
Series of five-year economic plans under Stalin
Gosplan (Committee for State Planning) in Moscow
Soviet Enterprises in Agriculture & Industry
Virgin and Idle Lands (increase the production of grain)
Hero Projects (construction of dams, railways, plants, etc)
32. 5.4.2 Economic Roots of the 2nd Russian Revolution
Reform Policies of Gorbachev
Glasnost (openness)
Perestroika (restructuring)
Second Russian Revolution
Demands for new freedoms and greater autonomy
Rise of Boris Yeltsin, champion of reformers’ cause
Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991
Soviet Union was voted out of existence the next day
and replaced by 15 independent countries
33. 5.4.3 Russia’s Road to Misdevelopment
Russia classified as a “Misdeveloped Country”
Boris Yeltsin’s “Economic Shock Therapy”
Rapid transition from command economy to capitalism
Widening gap between rich and poor
Russia’s GDP plummeted, shrinking by half in the 1990s
Agricultural and industrial production fell dramatically
Largest fall in production for any industrialized country in
peacetime
Underground Economy: Russia’s new economic
geography
Russia became a kleptocracy, with rampant corruption
Organized crime became pervasive
Widespread bartering resulted from declining value of the ruble
36. 5.4.4 Putinomics
Vladimir Putin
Former KGB officer of the Soviet Union
Became very popular Russian President and Prime Minister
“Putinomics”
Export Russia’s natural resources to flood Russia with wealth
Profits will be rolled into manufacturing and high-tech industries
so that Russia enjoys a more stable, diversified economy
Energy represents about 2/3 of the value of Russia’s exports
6% of the world’s proven oil reserves
27% of the world’s proven natural gas reserves
2nd largest coal reserves
Problems
Will not be possible to sustain production of natural resources
Russia has faced one of the greatest brain drains
37. 5.5 Geopolitical Issues
“The Greatest Geopolitical Catastrophe of the Century”
Vladimir Putin, in a 2005 speech, discussing the collapse of
the Soviet Union
3 Concentric Spheres of Geopolitical Concern
Within the Russian Federation (Unity of Russia itself)
Russia’s relationships with its Near Abroad
Russia’s relationships with the Rest of the World
38. 5.5.1 Geopolitics Within Russia
Complex Political Categories
48 Oblasts (Regions)
7 Krais (Territories)
21 Republics (Varying Levels of Autonomy)
4 Okrugs (Ethnic Subdivisions of Oblasts / Krais)
2 Federal Cities
1 Autonomous Oblast
Chechnya and Tatarstan pushing for independence
Geopolitical significance has to do with resources
Oil and Gas Tatarstan and Bashkhortostan
Coal Deposits Komi Republic
Diamonds Sakha
40. 5.5.2 Geopolitics in the Near Abroad
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
Energy Shortages and Supplies
Russia using fossil fuels as a political weapon
Irredentism
25 million ethnic Russians living in the 14 former Soviet states
Desires of Russians living outside of Russia to achieve their own
rights and territories
Territorial Issues
Control of the Crimean Peninsula and Kerch Strait
GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova)
Orientation toward Europe and away from Russia
Russia’s military presence in more than half the former
Soviet countries
Peacekeepers or Conquerors?
43. 5.5.3 The Far Abroad
International Relations
Peaceful succession to the Cold War
The Warsaw Pact has dissolved.
Russia became a member of the Group of Eight (G-8) in 1997
Energy Issues
Concerns about Russia being a reliable trading partner for oil and
natural gas
Weapons Proliferation Issues
Russia’s assistance to nuclear and would-be nuclear weapons powers
Reduction of nuclear arsenals
Threat of “Loose Nukes”
With whom will oil-rich Central Asia align?
Russia, Turkey, or Iran?
Turkey’s dream of Pan-Turkism
Combating narcotics and terrorism
44. 5.6.1 Regional Issues and Landscapes
Peoples and Resources of the Core Land
The Slavs are the dominant ethnic group
Resources are distributed unevenly in this region
The Fertile Triangle
AKA “Agricultural Triangle”
and “Slavic Core”
Functional hub of the region
Contains 75% of region’s
people and an even larger
share of its cities
45. 5.6.2 The Ukraine
Ukrainians
Second largest ethnic group in the Slavic Core
Closely related to Russians in language and culture
Ukraine means “at the border” or “borderland”
A buffer between Russia and neighboring lands
Industrial and agricultural assets were vital to USSR
Fertile black earth soils have made Ukraine a great
“breadbasket” of wheat, barley, livestock and other products
Generous endowments of coal and iron ore
46. 5.6.3 Chernobyl
Site of a 1986 nuclear power station explosion
North of Kiev, Ukraine
Rendered parts of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia
incapable of safe agricultural production
There is still an 18-mile
exclusion zone today
Aftermath
100,000 to 200,000 people
still severely affected
4,000 deaths expected to
ultimately be attributed to
this disaster
Ukraine decommissioning
all of its Chernobyl-type
nuclear plants
47. 5.6.4 Farming in the Fertile Triangle
Most of the Fertile Triangle is within Russia
Russia still faces difficulties in transforming state-run
into free-market farming
Russia has been slow to privatize farming
Russia remains a net food importer
Global-scale production of wheat, barley, oats, rye,
potatoes, sugar beets, flax, sunflower seeds,
cotton, milk, butter, and mutton
48. 5.6.5 Russia’s Far East & Northern Lands
The Far East
Russia’s mountainous Pacific edge
Mostly thinly populated wilderness
Economy driven by ports, fisheries, and forest industries
Most people live along two transportation arteries
The Trans-Siberian Railroad
The lower Amur River
Island of Sakhalin
Geopolitics involving Russia and Japan over its control
Important for its off-shore petroleum and natural gas
Contains about 1 percent of global oil reserves
49. 5.6.5 Russia’s Far East & Northern Lands
The Wild North
Subregion lying north and east of the Fertile Triangle,
and west of the Pacific coast
Taiga (coniferous forest)
Tundra
Northern Sea Route
Waterway developed by the Soviets to provide a connection
with the Pacific via the Arctic Ocean
Ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk
Navigation of full route was only possible for about 4 months
per year with the help of icebreakers, but global warming is
now allowing navigability a greater proportion of the year
Possibility of constructing a rail link between Siberia
and North America (Alaska)
51. 5.6.5 Russia’s Far East & Northern Lands
Lake Baikal
Deepest body of freshwater in the world
More than 1 mile deep in places
Contains one-fifth of the world’s unfrozen freshwater
Oldest lake in the world at 30 million years of age
Contains 1,800 endemic plant and animal species
52. 5.6.6 The Caucasus: Cauldron of Conflict
Caucasian isthmus has been an important north-south
passageway for thousands of years
Dozens of ethnic groups have migrated into this region
Mostly small ethnic populations confined to mountain areas
Different nationalities have maintained their ethnic
characteristics and cultural traditions (e.g., language, religion,
etc.)
History of animosity between Armenians and Azeri Turks
Armenian genocide resulted in deaths of around 1.5 million
Armenians between 1915 and 1918
Twice as many Armenians live outside Armenia than live in it
Armenian-Azeri dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh enclave
Turkey and Armenia established diplomatic relations in 2009,
which helps Turkey’s application to the EU
53. 5.6.7 Central Asia
Central Asia almost entirely a region of interior drainage
With exception of the Irtysh, all other streams drain into
enclosed lakes and seas, or gradually lose water and disappear
Historically, peoples in this region were pastoral nomads
Over time they drifted away from nomadism, with the Soviet
government forcibly collectivizing the remaining nomads into
permanent villages
Most people today live in heavily irrigated valleys
Irrigation is essential for farming
Causing water shortages in some areas
Shrinking of the Aral Sea
