Siberia

Siberia is the region of Russia to the east of the Ural Mountains, reaching for thousands of miles to the Pacific Ocean.

Historically Siberia was inhabited by nomadic tribes. Russia colonisation was gradually accomplished by the creation of penal colonies, the establishment of military garrisons, and the arrival of Cossacks. Even after the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the population of the region remains low.

Siberia is enormously rich in natural resources; oil, diamonds, gold and many other metals.

Siberia contains several of the worlds longest rivers.

There are active volcanos on the Kamchatka peninsula.

Siberian wildlife includes tigers, black, brown and polar bears, sables, sea otters and lemmings. The frozen corpses of mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses have been found frozen in the Siberian Arctic. Huge numbers of fur seals and walruses live on the North Siberian Islands and in the Bering Sea and the extinct sirenian Steller's Sea Cow was found only here.