Russia Habitat Guide: An overview

Russia lies in Northern Asia, west of the Ural Mountains, between the north Pacific Ocean and abutting the Arctic Ocean on its extreme northern borders. It spans a vast amount of land from the Urals, across the Siberian plains to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. The Russian Federation is almost double the area of the USA. It shares land frontiers with the countries of Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland and Ukraine.

The topography of Mother Russia is as vastly variaed as its size is immense. Broad plains with low hills lie west of Urals; vast coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; uplands and mountains along northern border regions touched by the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Gora El’brus is the highest spot at 5,633 m and in contrast is Caspian Sea at 28 m below sea level. Formidable reserves of natural resources include deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, timber and strategic minerals like uranium and plutonium. But major impediments to its development are its  environmental conditions like permafrost over much of Siberia, volcanic activity in the Kuril Islands and volcanoes and earthquakes on the Kamchatka peninsula. Three major rivers the Dnepr, Don and Volga flow into the Black and Caspian Seas.

All the steps taken in the name of development in Russia have led to serious environmental hazards. These comprise of 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 and soil erosion; soil contamination from improper application of agricultural chemicals; scattered areas of sometimes intense radioactive contamination and ground water contamination from toxic waste.

There are different flora and fauna for the different environment belts in Russia. In the northern forests reindeers, wolves and brown bears hide between spruce and pine. Deer, lynx and the Siberian tiger live in the mixed deciduous and coniferous forests.