Map of Russia
'
Russia' is a country located in
Europe and in
North Asia. The European part of the country includes the territories to the west of the
Ural Mountains. Russia is the largest country in the world in terms of area, but is unfavorably located in relation to major sea lanes of the world. Despite its size, much of the country lacks proper soils and climates (either too cold or too dry) for
agriculture. Russia's
topology includes Europe's highest mountain, its longest river, and the world's deepest lake. The topography and climate, however, resemble those of the northernmost portion of the
North American continent. The northern forests and the plains bordering them to the south find their closest counterparts in the
Yukon Territory and in the wide swath of land extending across most of
Canada. The terrain, climate, and settlement patterns of
Siberia are similar to those of
Alaska and Canada.
Global position and boundaries
Located in the northern and middle latitudes of the
Northern Hemisphere, most of Russia is much closer to the
North Pole than to the
equator. Individual country comparisons are of little value in gauging Russia's enormous size (slightly less than twice that of the
United States) and diversity. The country's 17.1 million square kilometers include one-eighth of the
Earth's inhabited land area. Its European portion, which occupies a substantial part of continental Europe, is home to most of Russia's industrial and agricultural activity. It was here, roughly between the
Dnieper River and the
Ural Mountains, that the
Russian Empire took shape.
Russia's girth is impressive by any measure. From west to east, the country stretches from
Kaliningrad (the enclave separated by the
1991 secession of
Lithuania from the then-Soviet Union) to Ratmanov Island (one of the
Diomede Islands) in the
Bering Strait. This distance is roughly equivalent to the distance from
Edinburgh,
Scotland, to
Nome,
Alaska. From north to south, the country ranges from the northern tip of the Arctic islands of
Franz Josef Land to the southern tip of the
Republic of Dagestan on the
Caspian Sea, spanning about 4,500 kilometers of extremely varied, often inhospitable terrain.
Extending for 57,792 kilometers, the Russian
border is the world's longest, a source of substantial concern for national security in the post-
Soviet era. Along the 20,139-kilometer land frontier, Russia has boundaries with fourteen countries—eight of which did not exist as countries until the early 1990s. These "new neighbors" are
Kazakhstan in Asia, and, in Europe,
Estonia,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Belarus,
Ukraine,
Georgia, and
Azerbaijan. The remaining bordering countries are
North Korea,
China,
Mongolia,
Poland,
Norway, and
Finland. And, at the far northeastern extremity, only eighty-six kilometers of the Bering Strait separate Russia from a fifteenth neighbor—the
United States.
Approximately two-thirds of the frontier is bounded by water. Virtually all of the lengthy northern coast is well above the
Arctic Circle; except for the port of
Murmansk—which receives currents that are somewhat warmer than would be expected at that lattitude, due to the effects of the
Gulf Stream—that coast is locked in ice much of the year. Thirteen seas and parts of three oceans—the
Arctic,
Atlantic, and
Pacific—wash Russian shores.
See also
Russia-United States maritime boundary.
Administrative and territorial divisions
Main articles: Subdivisions of Russia
With a few changes of status, most of the Soviet-era administrative and territorial divisions of the Russian Republic were retained in constituting the Russian Federation. In
2006, there were eighty-eight administrative territorial divisions (called
federal subjects): twenty-one
republics, seven
krais (territories), forty-eight
oblasts (provinces), one autonomous oblast, and nine autonomous
okrugs. The cities of
Moscow and
St. Petersburg also have
federal status.
The republics include a wide variety of peoples, including northern Europeans,
Tatars,
Caucasus peoples, and indigenous Siberians. The
largest federal subjects are in Siberia. Located in east-central Siberia, the
Sakha Republic (Yakutia) is the largest federal subject in the country (and the
largest country subdivision in the world), twice the size of Alaska. Second in size is
Krasnoyarsk Krai, located southwest of Sakha in Siberia.
Kaliningrad Oblast is the smallest oblast, and it is the only noncontiguous part of Russia. The two
most populous federal subjects,
Moscow Oblast (with Moscow) and
Krasnodar Krai, are in European Russia.
Topography and drainage
Geographers traditionally divide the vast territory of Russia into five natural zones: the
tundra zone; the
taiga, or forest, zone; the
steppe, or plains, zone; the
arid zone; and the
mountain zone. Most of Russia consists of two
plains (the
East European Plain and the
West Siberian Plain), two
lowlands (the
North Siberian and the
Kolyma, in far northeastern Siberia), two
plateaus (the
Central Siberian Plateau and the
Lena Plateau to its east), and a series of mountainous areas mainly concentrated in the extreme northeast or extending intermittently along the southern border.
Topography
East European plain
The
East European Plain encompasses most of
European Russia. The
West Siberian Plain, which is the world's largest, extends east from the
Urals to the
Yenisei River. Because the terrain and vegetation are relatively uniform in each of the natural zones, Russia presents an illusion of uniformity. Nevertheless, Russian territory contains all the major vegetation zones of the world except a
tropical rain forest.
Tundra
About 10% of Russia is
tundra—a treeless, marshy plain. The tundra is Russia's northernmost zone, stretching from the
Finnish border in the west to the
Bering Strait in the east, then running south along the
Pacific coast to the northern
Kamchatka Peninsula. The zone is known for its herds of wild
reindeer, for so-called
white nights (dusk at midnight, dawn shortly thereafter) in summer, and for days of total darkness in winter. The long, harsh winters and lack of sunshine allow only
mosses,
lichens, and
dwarf willows and shrubs to sprout low above the barren
permafrost. Although several powerful Siberian rivers traverse this zone as they flow northward to the Arctic Ocean, partial and intermittent thawing hamper drainage of the numerous lakes, ponds, and swamps of the tundra. Frost weathering is the most important physical process here, gradually shaping a landscape that was severely modified by
glaciation in the last
ice age. Less than 1% of Russia's population lives in this zone. The fishing and port industries of the northwestern
Kola Peninsula and the huge
oil and
gas fields of northwestern Siberia are the largest employers in the tundra. With a population of 180,000, the industrial frontier city of
Norilsk is second in population to
Murmansk among Russia's settlements above the Arctic Circle.
Taiga
The
taiga, which is the world's largest forest region, contains mostly
coniferous spruce,
fir,
pine, and
larch. This is the largest natural zone of Russia, an area about the size of the United States. In the northeastern portion of this belt, long and severe winters frequently bring the world's coldest temperatures for inhabited areas. The taiga zone extends in a broad band across the middle latitudes, stretching from the Finnish border in the west to the
Verkhoyansk Range in northeastern Siberia and as far south as the southern shores of
Lake Baikal. Isolated sections of taiga also exist along mountain ranges such as the southern part of the Urals and in the
Amur River valley bordering China in the
Far East. About 33% of Russia's population lives in this zone, which, together with a band of
mixed forest to its south, includes most of the European part of Russia and the ancestral lands of the earliest Slavic settlers.
Mixed and Deciduous forest
The mixed and
deciduous forest belt is triangular, widest along the western border and narrower towards the
Ural Mountains. The main trees are
Oak and
Spruce, but many other growths of vegetation such as
ash,
aspen,
birch,
hornbeam,
maple, and
pine reside there. Separating the taiga from the wooded steppe is a narrow belt of birch and aspen woodland located east of the Urals as far as the
Altay mountains. Much of the forested zone has been cleared for
agriculture, especially in
European Russia. Wildlife is more scarce as a result of this, but the
roe deer,
wolf,
fox, and
squirrel are very common.
Steppe
The
steppe has long been depicted as the typical Russian landscape. It is a broad band of treeless, grassy plains, interrupted by mountain ranges, extending from
Hungary across
Ukraine, southern Russia, and
Kazakhstan before ending in
Manchuria. Most of the Soviet Union's steppe zone was located in the Ukrainian and Kazakh republics; the much smaller Russian steppe is located mainly between those nations, extending southward between the
Black and
Caspian Seas before blending into the increasingly desiccated territory of the
Republic of Kalmykia. In a country of extremes, the steppe zone provides the most favorable conditions for human settlement and agriculture because of its moderate temperatures and normally adequate levels of sunshine and moisture. Even here, however, agricultural yields are sometimes adversely affected by unpredictable levels of
precipitation and occasional catastrophic
droughts.
Mountain ranges
Russia's mountain ranges are located principally along its continental divide (the Ural Mountains), along the southwestern border (the
Caucasus), along the border with
Mongolia (the eastern and western
Sayan Mountains and the western extremity of the
Altay Mountains), and in eastern Siberia (a complex system of ranges in the northeastern corner of the country and forming the spine of the
Kamchatka Peninsula, and lesser mountains extending along the
Sea of Okhotsk and the
Sea of Japan). Russia has nine major mountain ranges. In general, the eastern half of the country is much more mountainous than the western half, the interior of which is dominated by low plains. The traditional dividing line between the east and the west is the
Yenisei River valley. In delineating the western edge of the
Central Siberian Plateau from the West Siberian Plain, the Yenisey runs from near the Mongolian border northward into the Arctic Ocean west of the
Taymyr Peninsula.
Ural Mountains
The
Ural Mountains are the most famous of the country's mountain ranges because they form the natural boundary between
Europe and
Asia; the range extends about 2,100 kilometers from the
Arctic Ocean to the northern border of
Kazakhstan. In terms of elevation, however, the Urals are far from impressive, and they do not serve as a formidable natural barrier. Several low passes provide major transportation routes through the Urals eastward from Europe. The highest peak,
Mount Narodnaya, is only 1,894 meters. Yet, while they are not imposing to the eye, the Urals do contain valuable deposits of minerals.
West Siberian plain
To the east of the Urals is the
West Siberian Plain, which covers more than 2.5 million square kilometers, stretching about 1,900 kilometers from west to east and about 2,400 kilometers from north to south. With more than half its territory below 500 meters in elevation, the plain contains some of the world's largest
swamps and
floodplains. Most of the plain's population lives in the drier section south of 55° north
latitude.
Central Siberian plateau
The region directly east of the
West Siberian Plain is the
Central Siberian Plateau, which extends eastward from the
Yenisei River valley to the
Lena River valley. The region is divided into several
plateaus, with elevations ranging between 320 and 740 meters; the highest elevation is about 1,800 meters, in the northern
Putoran Mountains. The plain is bounded on the south by the
Baikal Mountains system and on the north by the North Siberian Lowland, an extension of the West Siberian Plain extending into the Taymyr Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean.
Sayan and Stanovoy Mountains
In the mountain system west of
Lake Baikal in south-central Siberia, the highest elevations are 3,300 meters in the Western
Sayan, 3,200 meters in the Eastern Sayan, and 4,500 meters at
Belukha Mountain in the
Altay Mountains. The Eastern Sayan reach nearly to the southern shore of
Lake Baikal; at the lake, there is an elevation difference of more than 4,500 meters between the nearest mountain, 2,840 meters high, and the deepest part of the lake, which is 1,700 meters below sea level. The mountain systems east of Lake Baikal are lower, forming a complex of minor ranges and valleys that reaches from the lake to the Pacific coast. The maximum height of the
Stanovoy Range, which runs west to east from northern Lake Baikal to the Sea of Okhotsk, is 2,550 meters. To the south of that range is southeastern Siberia, whose mountains reach 800 meters. Across the
Strait of Tartary from that region is
Sakhalin Island, where the highest elevation is about 1,700 meters.
Caucasus mountains
Truly alpine terrain appears in the southern mountain ranges. Between the Black and Caspian seas, the
Caucasus Mountains rise to impressive heights, forming a boundary between Europe and Asia. One of the peaks,
Mount Elbrus, is the highest point in Europe, at 5,642 meters. The geological structure of the Caucasus extends to the northwest as the
Crimean and
Carpathian Mountains and southeastward into
Central Asia as the
Tian Shan and
Pamirs. The Caucasus Mountains create an imposing natural barrier between Russia and its neighbors to the southwest,
Georgia and
Azerbaijan.
Northeast Siberia and Kamchatka
Northeastern Siberia, north of the Stanovoy Range, is an extremely mountainous region. The long
Kamchatka Peninsula, which juts southward into the Sea of Okhotsk, includes many
volcanic peaks, some of which still are active. The highest is the 4,750-meter
Klyuchevskaya Sopka, the highest point in the
Russian Far East. The volcanic chain continues from the southern tip of Kamchatka southward through the
Kuril Islands chain and into
Japan. Kamchatka also is one of Russia's two centers of seismic activity (the other is the Caucasus). In
1995, a major earthquake largely destroyed the oil-processing town of
Neftegorsk.
Drainage
A clear view of Lake Baikal captured by
SeaWiFS
Russia is a water-rich country. The earliest settlements in the country sprang up along the rivers, where most of the urban population continues to live. The
Volga, Europe's longest river, is by far Russia's most important commercial waterway. Four of the country's thirteen largest cities are located on its banks:
Nizhny Novgorod,
Samara,
Kazan, and
Volgograd. The
Kama River, which flows west from the southern Urals to join the Volga in the
Republic of Tatarstan, is a second key European water system whose banks are densely populated.
Russia has thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water, providing it with one of the world's largest surface-water resources. However, most of Russia's rivers and streams belong to the Arctic drainage basin, which lies mainly in Siberia but also includes part of European Russia. Altogether, 84% of Russia's surface water is located east of the Urals in rivers flowing through sparsely populated territory and into the Arctic and Pacific oceans. In contrast, areas with the highest concentrations of population, and therefore the highest demand for water supplies, tend to have the warmest climates and highest rates of
evaporation. As a result, densely populated areas such as the
Don and
Kuban River basins north of the Caucasus have barely adequate (or in some cases inadequate) water resources.
Forty of Russia's rivers longer than 1,000 kilometers are east of the Urals, including the three major rivers that drain Siberia as they flow northward to the Arctic Ocean: the
Irtysh-
Ob system (totaling 5,380 kilometers), the
Yenisei (4,000 kilometers), and the
Lena (3,630 kilometers). The basins of those river systems cover about eight million square kilometers, discharging nearly 50,000 cubic meters of water per second into the Arctic Ocean. The northward flow of these rivers means that source areas thaw before the areas downstream, creating vast swamps such as the 48,000-square-kilometer
Vasyugan Swamp in the center of the West Siberian Plain. The same is true of other river systems, including the
Pechora and the
Northern Dvina in Europe and the
Kolyma and the
Indigirka in Siberia. Approximately 10% of Russian territory is classified as swampland.
A number of other rivers drain Siberia from eastern mountain ranges into the Pacific Ocean. The
Amur River and its main tributary, the
Ussuri, form a long stretch of the winding boundary between Russia and China. The Amur system drains most of southeastern Siberia. Three basins drain European Russia. The
Dnieper, which flows mainly through Belarus and Ukraine, has its headwaters in the hills west of Moscow. The 1,860-kilometer
Don originates in the
Central Russian Upland south of Moscow and then flows into the
Sea of Azov and the
Black Sea at
Rostov-on-Don. The
Volga is the third and by far the largest of the European systems, rising in the
Valdai Hills west of Moscow and meandering southeastward for 3,510 kilometers before emptying into the
Caspian Sea. Altogether, the Volga system drains about 1.4 million square kilometers. Linked by several canals, European Russia's rivers long have been a vital transportation system; the Volga system still carries two-thirds of Russia's inland water traffic.
Russia's inland bodies of water are chiefly a legacy of extensive
glaciation. In European Russia, the largest lakes are
Ladoga and
Onega northeast of
St. Petersburg,
Lake Peipus on the
Estonian border, and the
Rybinsk Reservoir north of
Moscow. Smaller man-made reservoirs, 160 to 320 kilometers long, are on the Don, the Kama, and the Volga rivers. Many large reservoirs also have been constructed on the Siberian rivers; the
Bratsk Reservoir northwest of Lake Baikal is one of the world's largest.
The most prominent of Russia's bodies of fresh water is
Lake Baikal, the world's deepest and most capacious freshwater lake. Lake Baikal alone holds 85% of the freshwater resources of the lakes in Russia and 20% of the world's total. It extends 632 kilometers in length and 59 kilometers across at its widest point. Its maximum depth is 1,713 meters. Numerous smaller lakes dot the northern regions of the European and Siberian plains. The largest of these are lakes
Belozero,
Topozero,
Vygozero, and
Ilmen in the European northwest and
Lake Chany in southwestern Siberia.
Climate
Lake Baikal. Lake ice is beginning to form at the northernmost end of the lake and in a bay at the middle.
Russia has a largely continental
climate because of its sheer size and compact configuration. Most of its land is more than 400 kilometers from the sea, and the center is 3,840 kilometers from the sea. In addition, Russia's mountain ranges, predominantly to the south and the east, block moderating temperatures from the
Indian and
Pacific Oceans, but European Russia and northern Siberia lack such topographic protection from the
Arctic and North
Atlantic Oceans.
Because only small parts of Russia are south of 50° north
latitude and more than half of the country is north of 60° north latitude, extensive regions experience six months of snow cover over
subsoil that is
permanently frozen to depths as far as several hundred meters. The average yearly temperature of nearly all of European Russia is below freezing, and the average for most of Siberia is freezing or below. Most of Russia has only two seasons,
summer and
winter, with very short intervals of moderation between them. Transportation routes, including entire railroad lines, are redirected in winter to traverse rock-solid waterways and lakes. Some areas constitute important exceptions to this description, however: the moderate maritime climate of
Kaliningrad Oblast on the
Baltic Sea is similar to that of the
American Northwest; the
Russian Far East, under the influence of the Pacific Ocean, has a
monsoonal climate that reverses the direction of wind in summer and winter, sharply differentiating temperatures; and a narrow,
subtropical band of territory provides Russia's most popular summer resort area on the
Black Sea.
In winter, an intense high-pressure system causes winds to blow from the south and the southwest in all but the Pacific region of the Russian landmass; in summer, a low-pressure system brings winds from the north and the northwest to most of the landmass. Russia is the coldest country of the world (average annual temperature is −5.5°C). That meteorological combination reduces the wintertime temperature difference between north and south. Thus, average January temperatures are −8°C in St. Petersburg, −27°C in the
West Siberian Plain, and −43°C at
Yakutsk (in east-central Siberia, at approximately the same latitude as St. Petersburg), while the winter average on the
Mongolian border, whose latitude is some 10° farther south, is barely warmer. Summer temperatures are more affected by latitude, however; the Arctic islands average 4°C, and the southernmost regions average 20°C. Russia's potential for temperature extremes is typified by the national record low of −70°C, recorded at
Verkhoyansk in north-central Siberia and the record high of 38°C, recorded at several southern stations.
The long, cold winter has a profound impact on almost every aspect of life in Russia. It affects where and how long people live and work, what kinds of crops are grown, and where they are grown (no part of the country has a year-round growing season). The length and severity of the winter, together with the sharp fluctuations in the mean summer and winter temperatures, impose special requirements on many branches of the economy. In regions of permafrost, buildings must be constructed on pilings, machinery must be made of specially tempered steel, and transportation systems must be engineered to perform reliably in extremely low and extremely high temperatures. In addition, during extended periods of darkness and cold, there are increased demands for energy, health care, and textiles.
Because Russia has little exposure to ocean influences, most of the country receives low to moderate amounts of
precipitation. Highest precipitation falls in the northwest, with amounts decreasing from northwest to southeast across European Russia. The wettest areas are the small, lush subtropical region adjacent to the Caucasus and along the Pacific coast. Along the Baltic coast, average annual precipitation is 600 millimeters, and in Moscow it is 525 millimeters. An average of only twenty millimeters falls along the Russian-Kazakh border, and as little as fifteen millimeters may fall along Siberia's Arctic coastline. Average annual days of snow cover, a critical factor for agriculture, depends on both latitude and altitude. Cover varies from forty to 200 days in European Russia, and from 120 to 250 days in Siberia.
Area and boundaries
'Area:'
''total:''
17,075,200 km²
''land:''
16,995,800 km²
''water:''
79,400 km²
'Area - comparative:'
★
Australia comparative: slightly more than 2.2 times the size of Australia
★
Canada comparative: slightly more than 1.7 times the size of Canada
★
United Kingdom comparative: slightly more than 70 times the size of the UK
★
United States comparative: slightly more than 1.8 times the size of the U.S.
'Land boundaries:'
''total:''
19,917 km
Kaliningrad Oblast is a small part of west Russia with no land connection to the rest of Russia.
''border countries:''
★ Russia excluding Kaliningrad Oblast—
Azerbaijan; 284 km;
Belarus: 959 km;
China: (southeast) 3,605 km, China (south): 40 km;
Estonia: 294 km;
Finland: 1,313 km;
Georgia: 723 km;
Kazakhstan: 6,846 km;
Latvia: 217 km;
Mongolia: 3,441 km;
North Korea: 19 km;
Norway: 167 km;
Ukraine: 1,576 km
★ Kaliningrad Oblast—
Lithuania: 227 km;
Poland: 206 km
'Coastline:'
37,653 km
'Maritime claims:'
''
Russian continental shelf:''
200 m depth or to the depth of exploitation
''exclusive economic zone:''
200 nautical miles (370 km)
''territorial sea:''
12 nautical miles (22 km)
'Elevation extremes:'
''lowest point:''
Caspian Sea: −28 m
''highest point:''
Mount Elbrus: 5,642 m
'See also:'
Extreme points of Russia
Natural resources and land use
Russia holds the greatest reserves of mineral resources of any country in the world. Though they are abundant, they are in remote areas with extreme climates, making them expensive to mine. The country is the most abundant in mineral fuels. It may hold as much as half of the world's
coal reserves and even larger reserves of
petroleum. Deposits of coal are scattered throughout the region, but the largest are located in central and eastern
Siberia. The most developed fields lie in western Siberia, in the northeastern European region, in the area around
Moscow, and in the
Urals. The major petroleum deposits are located in western Siberia and in the Volga-Urals. Smaller deposits are found throughout the country.
Natural gas, a resource of which Russia holds around forty percent of the world's reserves, can be found along Siberia's
Arctic coast, in the
North Caucasus, and in northwestern Russia. Major
iron-ore deposits are located south of Moscow, near the
Ukrainian border in the
Kursk Magnetic Anomaly; this area contains vast deposits of iron ore that have caused a deviation in the Earth's magnetic field. There are smaller deposits in other parts of the country. The Ural mountains hold small deposits of
manganese.
Nickel,
tungsten,
cobalt, and
molybdenum and other iron alloys occur in adequate quantities.
Russia also contains most of the nonferrous metals.
Aluminum ores are scarce and are found primarily in the Ural region, northwestern European Russia, and south central Siberia.
Copper is more abundant and major reserves are located in the Urals, the
Norilsk area near the mouth of the
Yenisey in eastern Siberia, and the
Kola Peninsula. Another vast deposit located east of
Lake Baikal only became exploited when the
Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad was finished in 1989.
The North Caucasus, far eastern Russia, and the western edge of the
Kuznetsk Basin in southern Siberia contain an abundance of
lead and
zinc ores. These are commonly found along with copper,
gold,
silver, and a large amount of other rare metals. The country has one of the largest gold reserves in the world; mostly in Siberia and the Urals.
Mercury deposits can be found in the central and southern Urals and in south central Siberia.
Raw materials are abundant as well, including
potassium and
magnesium salt deposits in the
Kama River region of the western Urals. Russia also contains one of the world's largest deposits of
apatite found in the central Kola Peninsula. Rock salt is located in the southwestern Urals and the southwest of Lake Baikal. Surface deposits of salt are found in salt lakes along the lower Volga Valley.
Sulfur can be found in the Urals and the middle Volga Valley.
Eight percent of the land is used for
arable farming, four percent—for permanent pastures, forty-six percent of the land is forests and woodland, and forty-two percent is used for other purposes.
Environmental concerns
'Natural hazards:'
permafrost over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development; volcanic activity in the
Kuril Islands; volcanoes and earthquakes on the
Kamchatka peninsula
'Environment—current issues:'
air pollution from heavy industry, emissions of coal-fired electric plants, and transportation in major cities; industrial, municipal, and agricultural pollution of inland waterways and sea coasts; deforestation; soil erosion; soil contamination from improper application of agricultural chemicals; scattered areas of sometimes intense
radioactive contamination; ground water contamination from toxic waste; considerable biodiversity addressed by the country's
Biodiversity Action Plan.
'Environment - international agreements:'
''party to:''
Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Wetlands, Whaling
''signed, but not ratified:''
Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Climate Change-
Kyoto Protocol
'Geography - note:'
largest country in the world in terms of area but unfavorably located in relation to major sea lanes of the world; despite its size, much of the country lacks proper soils and climates (either too cold or too dry) for agriculture
While Russia possesses vast mineral and energy wealth, this does not come without some price both to Russia and to the greater globe.
[1] Particularly, oil and gas extraction exacts a heavy cost to the health of the land and people.
[1] Drilling waste water, mud, and sludges are accumulated, annual volumes have been estimated at 1.7 million tons of chemical reagents contaminating 25 million cubic meters of topsoil.
[1] Considerable geomechanical disturbances, contamination of soils and water, and multiple increases of contaminated waste water ejected into suface water streams, is a serious problem offsetting Russia's profits from the industry.
[1] It has been estimated that between 1991-1999 the volume of contaminated waste waters from the Russian oil industry amounted to 200 million cubic meters.
[1] Complete utilization of co-extracted gas in oil extraction does not exceed 80% in Russia, it has been variously estimated that annually 5-17 billion cubic meters of un-utilized gas extracted alongside oil is burnt in "
gas torches", with 400,000 tons or more hazardous substances released into the atmosphere from this each year, creating the double impact of wasted resource and negative environmental effect.
[6][1] 560 million tons of methane is estimated to leak annually into the atmosphere from oil and gas extraction, not counting accidental outbursts and pipe breakage.
[1] Other valuable industries also have their costs, such as the coal industry's release of vast quantities of hazardous, toxic, and radioactive materials.
[1] Also the Russian gold industry, with Russia being the only nation for at least a century with high extraction of gold from placer deposits, and having 4000+ large deposits, inevitably creates problems for the river systems.
[1] The associated pollution from using mass explosions in mining also can be a problem.
[1] Overall, the extensive mineral wealth and riches, brings with it both great benefit to the Russian economy & people, and the greater globe and all people, yet also several difficult problems to be dealt with.
[1]
References
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