Siberia
Siberia is the region of Russia east of the Ural Mountains, south of the Arctic Ocean, and stretching for thousands of miles east to the Pacific Ocean. Major towns of Siberia include Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Novysibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.
Contents
History
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 since the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the population of the region remains low.
Economy
Siberia is enormously rich in natural resources; oil, diamonds, gold and many other metals.
Landscape
From north to south, Siberia changes from tundra and permafrost, to extensive swamps and immense, predominantly coniferous forests. Siberia contains several of the worlds longest rivers - the Lena, the Ob', the Yenisey. There are glaciers and active volcanos on the Kamchatka peninsula. Lake Baikal is the worlds deepest lake.
Nature
Siberian wildlife includes tigers, reindeer, 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.
