|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As discussed in the preceding GeoCurrents post, Siberia is often considered too big and too cold; and as mentioned in an earlier GeoCurrents post, it is also too polluted. Such problems made Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, the authors of The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold, quip that “Siberia has been a rich …
Noteworthy Overlooked News From Around The World
|
Art & Culture |
|
Diplomacy |
|
Economics |
|
Environment |
|
Gender |
|
Politics |
|
Sports |
|
War & Strife |
Several Russian news websites report that life expectancy in Moscow has reached 75 years. The improvement is quite marked, as the corresponding figure in 2010 was only 73.6 years. Among the factors behind the rise in life expectancy in Moscow are modernization of healthcare, decrease in infant mortality, low unemployment, and high level of education. According to the head of Moscow health department Leonid Pechatnikov, “if we are to consider only the life expectancy of residents of Moscow without the rest of Russia, we are not that far behind Western Europe in life expectancy”. However, life expectancy figures for “the rest of Russia” do not look nearly as good, making Mr. Pechatnikov’s claim rather incongruous. Average life expectancy in Russia as a whole is just 70.3 years, and it is mostly due to Russian women…
Due to its possession of Siberia, Russia has the distinction of being both the world’s largest country by area and, by some measures, the coldest country. While Russia has for centuries been proud of its vast expanse and its frigid winters, some analysts both in Russia and abroad now see these two attributes as liabilities rather than assets. Whether Russia …
The past several GeoCurrents posts have examined the history of the Russian Republic of Sakha, formerly and informally referred to as Yakutia. We have focused on Sakha due both to the region’s intrinsic interest and to the fact that it is one of the most widely ignored sections of the Earth’s surface. Today’s post concludes this series within a series …
At the time of the Russia Revolution in 1917, the Yakuts (Sakha) were organizing on a national basis and pushing for autonomy and even sovereignty. Yakutia at the time was dominated by the Sakha, with Russians comprising only about ten percent of the population; even Yakutsk was a mainly Yakut town. The Sakha elite were relatively well educated and politically …
As we have seen, the Sakha people—called Yakuts by outsiders—dominated the crucial country of the middle Lena Valley, dotted with islands of fertile grassland, until the 1630s. Russian empire builders, spearheaded by Cossack bands, then pushed down the Lena and built three forts in the Yakut heartland, one of which would become the city of Yakutsk. As was true in …
As explained in the previous post, the Yakut (Sakha) people have adapted more easily to the demands of the Russian state, and of modernity more generally, than most other indigenous peoples on Siberia. The relative success of the Yakut is best understood historically. Relative newcomers from the south, the Yakut moved into central Siberia with a more advanced technology and …
Yakutia, officially the Sakha Republic of the Russian Federation, is a land of extremes. To begin with, it is by far the world’s largest “stateoid,” or political unit below the level of the sovereign state, covering 3,103,200 square kilometers (1,198,000 square miles), as opposed to second-place Western Australia’s 2,527,621 square kilometers (975,919 square miles). More than twice the size of …
In March 1969 Damansky/Zhenbao island became the site of a bloodbath which left several hundred Soviet and Chinese military and border guards dead. And even today this speck of land, together with two bigger islands near Khabarovsk, remains the focal point of simmering Russian-Chinese tensions.
The contact situation that obtained in Siberia was a perfect breeding ground for a creation and development of Russian-based Siberian pidgins. This post focuses on three Russian-based pidgins have been documented in some detail: Russenorsk (aka Russian-Norwegian pidgin), Govorka (aka Russian-Taymyr pidgin), and Kyakhta Russian-Chinese pidgin.
An interesting anomaly on the map of the federal subjects of the Russian Federation (see the map on the left) is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Far East, the only member of its category. Numerous Russian autonomous oblasts marked the map of the early Soviet Union. As recently as June 1991, five remained: Adyghe, Gorno-Altai, Karachay–Cherkess, Khakas, and …
Siberia was widely used as place of exile and imprisonment by the Tsarist government of Russia from the late 1600s until the end of the regime. Once the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they quickly replaced the tsarist katorga (penal servitude) system with the one of their own, which has become known as the Gulag Archipelago
GeoCurrents is a forum dedicated to exploring events from all over the world by delving into the peoples, places, genes, and languages that are shaping them.
The aim of GeoCurrents is not to take sides on any of these events, but to help foster an enriching and respectful exchange of information and ideas.
For more about GeoCurrents and its authors, please visit this page.
The Siberian Curse: Whence Siberia?—part 2
The Siberian Curse: Whence Siberia?
Sakha (Yakutia) Since the Fall of the Soviet Union
The Yakut Under Soviet Rule
The Yakut (Sakha) Under Tsarist Rule: Subordinate Partners in Empire?
Mapping the Ethno-Linguistic Mosaic of the Caucasus
The Politics of Genocide Claims and the Circassian Diaspora
Afghanistan and the Ethnolinguanymic State
Where Is the Caucasus?
Peoples, Languages and Genes in the Caucasus: An Introduction
James T. Wilson: That makes sense. I would have expected a site ca...
Asya Pereltsvaig: You've got some excellent points here, James, as a...
James T. Wilson: My question about the word xenophobia was sort of ...
Asya Pereltsvaig: Thank you for your kind words about the site!
You...
Asya Pereltsvaig: Neither have I. By the way, here's a better link:
...
If you have a great product or service you'd like to let our targeted audience know about, you can sponsor the development of this site with your promotion.
Terranova: The Black Petaltail - A Novel
Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development (5th Edition)
Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World (3rd Edition)
