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Siberia
Administrative map of Siberia
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Siberia is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation. Geographically, it includes a large part of the Eurasian Steppe and extends eastward from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between Pacific and Arctic drainage basins, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and the national borders of both Mongolia and China.
Except in the south, Siberia experiences long, cold winters that last for seven to eight months in most parts of the region and even longer in the far northeast. Summers in Siberia are short and generally moderate. The average temperature tends to rise as one moves south. Precipitation is usually light, except along the Pacific coast.
Major vegetation zones extend in bands from east to west across all of Siberia. Extending south from the Arctic Ocean for a distance of about 430 km (about 270 mi) is the tundra, a belt of treeless marshy plains. To the south, the tundra shades into the taiga, a vast belt of mainly coniferous forests, in which the most common trees are larch, pine, Siberian cedar, and fir. Along the southern edge of the taiga is a transitional forest belt with deciduous trees, such as birch, willow, and poplar. This area then shades into the steppe, or grasslands, of the southwest, which contains Siberia’s richest farmland.
Siberia is rich in animal life. Among its more common mammals are foxes, otters, wolves, hare, moose, reindeer, polar and brown bears, sable, seals, and walruses. Sturgeon, salmon, and rare freshwater seals inhabit Lake Baikal.
While the general elevation is 2000 to 2700 m, some of the individual peaks, consisting largely of granites and metamorphic slates reach altitudes of over 3000 m, with the highest being Munku-Sardyk at 3492 m. The principal mountain passes lie 1800 to 2300 m above the sea, for example Muztagh pass at 2280 m, Mongol pass at 1980 m, Tenghyz pass at 2280 m and Obo-sarym pass at 1860 m.
The Western Sayan is pierced by the Ulug-Khem or Upper Yenisei River, and at its eastern extremity, it terminates above the depression of the Selenga-Orkhon Valley. From the Mongolian plateau the ascent is on the whole gentle, but from the plains of Siberia it is much steeper, despite the fact that the range is masked by a broad belt of subsidiary ranges of an Alpine character, e.g. the Usinsk, Oya, Tunka, Kitoi and Belaya ranges.
Between the breach of the Yenisei and Lake Khovsgol at 100° 30' E. the system bears also the name of Yerghik-taiga. The flora is on the whole poor, although the higher regions carry good forests of larch, pine, juniper, birch, and alder, with rhododendrons and species of Berberis and Ribes. Lichens and mosses clothe many of the boulders that are scattered over the upper slopes.
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