1.
Siberia
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Siberia is an extensive geographical region, and by the broadest definition is also known as North Asia. Siberia has historically been a part of Russia since the 17th century, the territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins. It stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the borders of Mongolia. With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres, Siberia accounts for 77% of Russias land area and this is equivalent to an average population density of about 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. If it were a country by itself, it would still be the largest country in area, the origin of the name is unknown. Some sources say that Siberia originates from the Siberian Tatar word for sleeping land, another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sirtya, a folk, which spoke a language that later evolved into the Ugric languages. This ethnic group was assimilated to the Siberian Tatar people. The modern usage of the name was recorded in the Russian language after the Empires conquest of the Siberian Khanate, a further variant claims that the region was named after the Xibe people. The Polish historian Chycliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the word for north. He said that the neighbouring Chinese, Arabs and Mongolians would not have known Russian and he suggests that the name is a combination of two words, su and bir. The region is of significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch. Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs, Yuka and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon, a rhinoceros from the Kolyma River. The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earths geological history. They continued for a million years and are considered a cause of the Great Dying about 250 million years ago. At least three species of human lived in Southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago, H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis, the last was determined in 2010, by DNA evidence, to be a new species. Siberia was inhabited by different groups of such as the Enets, the Nenets, the Huns, the Scythians. The Khan of Sibir in the vicinity of modern Tobolsk was known as a prominent figure who endorsed Kubrat as Khagan of Old Great Bulgaria in 630, the Mongols conquered a large part of this area early in the 13th century. With the breakup of the Golden Horde, the autonomous Khanate of Sibir was established in the late 15th century, turkic-speaking Yakut migrated north from the Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes during the 13th to 15th century
2.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
3.
Russian Far East
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The Russian Far East is the Russian part of the Far East, i. e. the extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean. The Far Eastern Federal District, which covers this area, borders with the Siberian Federal District to the west. The Far Eastern Federal District has land borders with the Peoples Republic of China and North Korea to the south west and maritime borders with Japan, although traditionally considered part of Siberia, the Russian Far East is categorized separately from Siberia in Russian regional schemes. In Russia, the region is referred to as just Far East. What is known in English as the Far East is usually referred to as the Asia-Pacific Region, primorskaya Oblast was established as a separate administrative division of the Russian Empire in 1856, with its administrative center at Khabarovsk. Until 2000, the Russian Far East lacked officially defined boundaries, a single term Siberia and the Far East was often used to refer to Russias regions east of the Urals without drawing a clear distinction between Siberia and the Far East. Since 2000, the term Far East has been used in Russia to refer to the federal district. Defined by the boundaries of the district, the Far East has an area of 6.2 million square kilometers—over one-third of Russias total area. Russia in the early 1900s persistently sought a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean for the navy as well as to facilitate maritime trade, the recently established Pacific seaport of Vladivostok was operational only during the summer season, but Port Arthur in Manchuria was operational all year. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the failure of the 1903 negotiations between Japan and the Tsarss government, Japan chose war to protect its domination of Korea and adjacent territories. Russia, meanwhile, saw war as a means of distracting its populace from government repression, Japan issued a declaration of war on 8 February 1904. However, three hours before Japans declaration of war was received by the Russian Government, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the Russian Far East Fleet at Port Arthur, eight days later Russia declared war on Japan. Japan also received the southern half of the Island of Sakhalin from Russia, between 1937 and 1939, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin deported over 200,000 Koreans to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, fearing that the Koreans might act as spies for Japan. Many Koreans died on the way in cattle due to starvation, illness. Many community leaders were purged and executed, Koryo-saram were not allowed to travel outside of Central Asia for the next 15 years, Koreans were also not allowed to use the Korean language and its use began to become lost with the involvement of Koryo-mar and the use of Russian. Development of numerous remote locations relied on GULAG labour camps during Stalins rule, after that, the large-scale use of forced labour waned and was superseded by volunteer employees attracted by relatively high wages. Indeed, Japan turned its interests to Soviet territories. Conflicts between the Japanese and the Soviets frequently happened on the border of Manchuria between 1938 and 1945, the first confrontation occurred in Primorsky Krai, the Battle of Lake Khasan was an attempted military incursion of Manchukuo into the territory claimed by the Soviet Union
4.
East Siberian Sea
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The East Siberian Sea is a marginal sea in the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the Arctic Cape to the north, the coast of Siberia to the south, the New Siberian Islands to the west and Cape Billings, close to Chukotka and this sea borders on the Laptev Sea to the west and the Chukchi Sea to the east. This sea is one of the least studied in the Arctic area, the sea shores were inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous tribes of Yukaghirs, Chukchi and then Evens and Evenks, which were engaged in fishing, hunting and reindeer husbandry. They were then absorbed by Yakuts and later by Russians, major industrial activities in the area are mining and navigation within the Northern Sea Route, commercial fishing is poorly developed. The largest city and port is Pevek, the northernmost city of mainland Russia, the present name was assigned to the sea on 27 June 1935 by Decree of the Soviet Government. Before that, the sea had no name was intermixedly called in Russia as Indigirskoe, Kolymskoe, Severnoe, Sibirskoe or Ledovitoe. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the East Siberian Sea as follows, the Eastern limit of Laptev Sea. A line from the Northernmost point of Wrangel Island to the Northern sides of the De Long Islands and Bennett Island, from the Northernmost point of Wrangel Island through this island to Cape Blossom thence to Cape Yakan on the main land. Because it is open towards the Arctic Ocean in the north, the gulfs of the East Siberian Sea, like the Kolyma Bay, the Kolyma Gulf. There are no islands in the middle of the East Siberian Sea, but there are a few islands and island groups in its waters, like Ayon Island. The total area of the islands is only 80 km2, some islands mostly consist of sand and ice and gradually erode. The total catchment area is 1,342,000 km2, among the rivers flowing into the East Siberian Sea, the Indigirka, Alazeya, Uyandina, Chukochya, Kolyma, Rauchua, Chaun, and Pegtymel are the most important. Only a few rivers are navigable, the coastline of the sea is 3,016 km long. It makes large bends, sometimes stretching deep into the land, fine bends are rare and occur only in the river deltas. The coastal section between the New Siberian Islands and the mouth of the Kolyma River is uniform, with low and it extends landwards to the marshy tundra filled with numerous small lakes. In contrast, the coast to the east of the Kolyma River is mountainous, about 70% of the sea is shallower than 50 m, with predominant depths of 20–25 m. North-east to the mouth of the Kolyma and Indigirka rivers, there are deep trenches on the seabed, the region of small depths in the western part forms the Novosibirsk shoal. The greatest depths of about 150 m are found in the part of the sea
5.
Arctic Ocean
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The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the worlds five major oceans. Alternatively, the Arctic Ocean can be seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean, located mostly in the Arctic north polar region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America. It is partly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter, the summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center uses satellite data to provide a record of Arctic sea ice cover. The Arctic may become ice free for the first time in human history within a few years or by 2040, for much of European history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as growlers or bergy bits, his Thule was probably Norway, early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole as land or water. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank and this lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In England and other European nations, the myth of an Open Polar Sea was persistent, john Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this. In the United States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane, even quite late in the century, the eminent authority Matthew Fontaine Maury included a description of the Open Polar Sea in his textbook The Physical Geography of the Sea. Nevertheless, as all the explorers who travelled closer and closer to the reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick. Fridtjof Nansen was the first to make a crossing of the Arctic Ocean. The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbert in 1969, in a dog sled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard, with air support. The first nautical transit of the pole was made in 1958 by the submarine USS Nautilus. Since 1937, Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctic Ocean, scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometres by ice floes. In World War II, the European region of the Arctic Ocean was heavily contested, the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2, almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km long and it is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea, countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the United States. There are several ports and harbours around the Arctic Ocean In Alaska, in Canada, ships may anchor at Churchill in Manitoba, Nanisivik in Nunavut, Tuktoyaktuk or Inuvik in the Northwest territories
6.
Sea of Okhotsk
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The northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf. The sea is named after Okhotsk, the first Russian settlement in the Far East, the Sea of Okhotsk covers an area of 1,583,000 square kilometres, with a mean depth of 859 metres and a maximum depth of 3,372 metres. It is connected to the Sea of Japan on either side of Sakhalin, on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf, the distribution and thickness of ice floes depends on many factors, the location, the time of year, water currents, and the sea temperatures. With the exception of Hokkaido, one of the Japanese home islands, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Sea of Okhotsk as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern and Northern limits on the Japan Sea, some of the Sea of Okhotsks islands are quite large, including Japans second largest island, Hokkaido, as well as Russias largest island, Sakhalin. Practically all of the islands are either in coastal waters or belong to the various islands making up the Kuril Islands chain. These fall either under undisputed Japanese or Russian ownership or disputed ownership between Japan and Russia, iony Island is the only island located in open waters and belongs to the Khabarovsk Krai of the Russian Federation. The majority of the islands are uninhabited making them ideal breeding grounds for seals, sea lions, seabirds. Large colonies, with over an individuals, of crested auklets use the Sea of Okhotsk as a nesting site. The Okhotsk culture is a coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk. Some believe that Mishihase was living in the area, Russian explorers Ivan Moskvitin and Vassili Poyarkov were the first Europeans to visit the Sea of Okhotsk in the 1640s. The first and foremost Russian settlement on the shore was the port of Okhotsk, the Russian-American Company all but monopolized the commercial navigation of the sea in the first half of the 19th century. The Second Kamchatka Expedition under Vitus Bering systematically mapped the entire coast of the sea, jean-François de La Pérouse and William Robert Broughton were the first non-Russian European navigators known to have passed through these waters other than Maarten Gerritsz Vries. Ivan Krusenstern explored the eastern coast of Sakhalin in 1805, mamiya Rinzō and Gennady Nevelskoy determined that the Sakhalin was indeed an island separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. The first detailed summary of the hydrology of the Okhotsk sea was prepared and published by Stepan Makarov in 1894, American and French whaleships, as well as a few German, Russian, and British, hunted whales in the Sea of Okhotsk between 1845 and 1907. They primarily caught right whales and bowhead whales, the former in the half of the sea. Bowheads were first caught in 1847, and dominated the catch between 1849 and the late 1860s, beginning in the mid-1850s they caught the occasional gray whale, and made attempts to catch humpback, fin, blue and killer whales as well but were rarely successful. Beluga whales were also taken opportunistically, from 1854 to 1856, an average of nearly 150 vessels cruised in the sea each year
7.
Kolyma River
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The Kolyma River is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Sakha Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and Magadan Oblast of Russia. It begins at the confluence of the Kulu River and the Ayan Yuryakh River and empties into the Kolyma Gulf of the East Siberian Sea, the Kolyma is 2,129 kilometres long. The area of its basin is 644,000 square kilometres, the Kolyma is frozen to depths of several metres for about 250 days each year, becoming free of ice only in early June, until October. In 1640 Dimitry Zyryan went overland to the Indigirka, in 1641 he sailed down the Indigirka, went east and up the Alazeya. Here they heard of the Kolyma and met Chukchis for the first time, in 1643 he returned to the Indigirka, sent his yasak to Yakutsk and went back to the Alazeya. In 1645 he returned to the Lena where he met a party and he returned east and died in early 1646. In the winter of 1641–42 Mikhail Stadukhin, accompanied by Semyon Dezhnyov and he spent the next winter there, built boats and sailed down the Indigirka and east to the Alazeya where he met Zyryan. Zyryan and Dezhnyov stayed at the Alazeya, while Stadukhin went east and they built a zimovye, probably at Srednekolymsk, and returned to Yakutsk in late 1645. In 1892–94 Baron Eduard Von Toll carried out surveys in the basin of the Kolyma on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During one year and two days the expedition covered 25,000 kilometres, of which 4,200 kilometres were up rivers, the Kolyma is known for its Gulag labour camps and gold mining, both of which have been extensively documented since Joseph Stalin–era Soviet archives opened. The river gives its title to an anthology about life in Gulag camps by Varlam Shalamov. After the camps were closed, state subsidies, local industries, many people have migrated, but those who remain in the area make a living by fishing and hunting. In small fishing settlements, fish are sometimes stored in caves carved from permafrost, the first two Americans to visit the Kolyma after the Nanuks visit were writer Wallace Kaufman and journalist Rebecca Clay, who traveled by cutter from Ziryanka to Green Cape in August 1991. Settlements at the Kolyma river include Sinegorye, Debin, Ust-Srednekan, Seymchan, Zyryanka, Srednekolymsk, there is a hydropower plant at Sinegorye in the upper part of the river. The plant was started in the 1980s by Kolyma Gestroi and both the plant and the town of Sinegoria were built under the supervision of chief engineer Oleg Kogadovski. The town included an olympic sized swimming pool, a rifle range. Kogadovski said that in order to attract and employ good talent in such a remote place, the dam provides most of the electricity to the region including Magadan. The Kolyma dam is a dam some 150 ft high
8.
Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
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Chukotka Autonomous Okrug or Chukotka is a federal subject of Russia in the Russian Far East. The population was recorded at 50,526 in the 2010 Census, the autonomous okrugs surface area is 737,700 square kilometers. The principal town and the center is Anadyr. The region is the most northeasterly region of Russia and, since the sale of Alaska to the United States, has been the part of Russia lying partially in the Western Hemisphere. Elgygytgyn Lake, a crater lake, is located in Chukotka, as is the village of Uelen. The Chukchi Peninsula projects eastward forming the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, and encloses the north side of the Gulf of Anadyr, the peninsulas easternmost point, Cape Dezhnev, is also the easternmost point of mainland Russia. Ecologically, Chukotka can be divided into three areas, the northern Arctic desert, the central tundra, and the taiga in the south. About half of its area is above the Arctic Circle and this area is very mountainous, containing the Chukotsky Mountains and the Anadyr Range. Chukotkas rivers spring from its northern and central mountains, the major rivers are, Anadyr River, with tributaries Belaya, Tanyurer, and Velikaya Rivers, flowing east to the Gulf of Anadyr. Omolon and the Great and Little Anyuy Rivers that flow west into the Kolyma River in Yakutia, rauchua, Chaun, Palyavaam, Pegtymel, Chegitun and Amguyema Rivers that flow north into the arctic seas. The largest lakes are Lake Krasnoye, west of Anadyr, large parts of Chukotka are covered with moss, lichen, and arctic plants, similar to western Alaska. Surrounding the Gulf of Anadyr and in the river valleys grow small larch, pine, birch, poplar, more than 900 species of plants grow in Chukotka, including 400 species of moss and lichen. It is home to 220 bird species and 30 fresh water fish species, chukotkas climate is influenced by its location on the three neighboring seas, the Bering Sea, the East Siberian Sea, and the Chukchi Sea. The weather is characterized by cold winds that can quickly change to wet southern winds. Cape Navarin has the highest number of hurricanes and storms in Russia, the coastal areas are windy with little precipitation, between 200 and 400 mm per year. Temperature varies from −15 °C to −35 °C in January and from +5 °C to +14 °C in July, growing season is short, only 80 to 100 days per year. The first inhabitants were Paleo-Siberian hunters who came to Chukotka from Central, the area was then part of the Beringia land bridge that is believed to have enabled human migration to the Americas. Traditionally Chukotka was the home of the native Chukchi people, Siberian Yupiks, Koryaks, Chuvans, Evens/Lamuts, Yukaghirs, and Russian Old Settlers
9.
Magadan Oblast
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Magadan Oblast is a federal subject of Russia in the Far Eastern Federal District. It borders Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the north, Kamchatka Krai in the east, Khabarovsk Krai in the south and its administrative center is the city of Magadan. Its population is 156,996 making it the least populated Oblast in Russia, Magadan Oblast was established on December 3,1953 in what had popularly been known as Kolyma. Upon Stalins death, Dalstroy was disbanded and the administration took over many of its former responsibilities. From then on, paid labor replaced most of the manpower, attracted by the regions rapid economic expansion. As a result, many of those who can no longer rely on sources of income are now unemployed. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug was formerly administratively subordinated to Magadan Oblast, Magadan Oblast consists principally of mountainous desert, tundra, and taiga. The southern part of the region is forested with birch, willow, mountain ash, larch. The animal species in the south include snow sheep, reindeer, moose, there are also many varieties of birds, including ducks and seabirds. The Sea of Okhotsk has rich fishing grounds for pollock, herring, cod, flounder and salmon, as well as crabs, the economy is centered on mining interests for gold, silver and other non-ferrous metals. The city of Magadan is the large industrial center. Agriculture is not well developed in the region, on April 2014 the Russian government has endorsed bills for extending the operations of the Special Economic Zone in Magadan Oblast through to December 31,2025. Magadan Oblast is considered one of the worlds richest mining areas, gold is the regions main resource, although silver and tin deposits are also being developed. There are nearly 2,000 placer gold deposits,100 gold ore deposits, recently, there has been interest in exploiting the coal resources in the region. Over the medium term, there seem to be excellent opportunities for petroleum, the fishing industry is the regions only food sector and is second in importance after mining. The 600,000 square kilometers area of the Sea of Okhotsk that borders on Magadan Oblast is one of the most productive regions of the worlds oceans, Magadan Oblast has more than 15,900 kilometers of coastline and 29,016 kilometers of rivers of commercial importance. The catching vessels of the fishing companies operate mainly in Russias economic zone, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea. Most of the catch comes from coastal waters, fishing industry companies are concentrated in Magadan, Ola, Yamsk, and Evensk
10.
Arctic Circle
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The Arctic Circle is the most northerly of the abstract five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of the Earth. The region north of this circle is known as the Arctic, the position of the Arctic Circle is not fixed, as of 7 April 2017, it runs 66°33′46. 6″ north of the Equator. Its latitude depends on the Earths axial tilt, which fluctuates within a margin of 2° over a 40, 000-year period, consequently, the Arctic Circle is currently drifting northwards at a speed of about 15 m per year. The word arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός and that from the word ἄρκτος, directly on the Arctic Circle these events occur, in principle, exactly once per year, at the June and December solstices, respectively. That is true at sea level, those limits increase with elevation above sea level, tens of thousands of years ago, waves of people migrated from eastern Siberia across the Bering Strait into North America to settle. Much later, in the period, there has been migration into some Arctic areas by Europeans. The largest communities north of the Arctic Circle are situated in Russia and Norway, Murmansk, Norilsk, Tromsø, rovaniemi in Finland is the largest settlement in the immediate vicinity of the Arctic Circle, lying slightly south of the line. In contrast, the largest North American community north of the Arctic Circle, of the Canadian and United States Arctic communities, Barrow, Alaska is the largest settlement with about 4,000 inhabitants. The Arctic Circle is roughly 16,000 kilometres, the area north of the Circle is about 20,000,000 km2 and covers roughly 4% of Earths surface. The Arctic Circle passes through the Arctic Ocean, the Scandinavian Peninsula, North Asia, Northern America, the land within the Arctic Circle is divided among eight countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, and Iceland. In the interior, summers can be warm, while winters are extremely cold
11.
Subarctic climate
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The subarctic climate is a climate characterised by long, usually very cold winters, and short, cool to mild summers. It is found on large landmasses, away from the effects of an ocean. These climates represent Köppen climate classification Dfc, Dwc, Dsc, Dfd, Dwd and Dsd. This type of climate offers some of the most extreme seasonal temperature variations found on the planet, in winter, temperatures can drop to −40 °C and in summer, record low temperatures can be as cold as −60 °C. With 5–7 consecutive months where the temperature is below freezing. Summer warmth is insufficient to thaw more than a few surface feet, seasonal thaw penetrates from 2 to 14 ft, depending on latitude, aspect, and type of ground. Some northern areas with subarctic climates located near oceans, have milder winters and no permafrost, the frost-free season is very short, varying from about 45 to 100 days at most, and a freeze can occur during any month in many areas. Most subarctic climates have very little precipitation, typically no more than 380 mm over an entire year, a notable exception to this pattern is that subarctic climates occurring at high altitudes in otherwise temperate regions have extremely high precipitation due to orographic lift. Mount Washington, with temperatures typical of a climate, receives an average rain-equivalent of 101.91 inches of precipitation per year.5 metres that does not melt until June. Vegetation in regions with subarctic climates is generally of low diversity, as only hardy species can survive the long winters, trees are mostly limited to conifers, as few broadleaved trees are able to survive the very low temperatures in winter. This type of forest is known as taiga, a term which is sometimes applied to the climate found therein as well. Even though the diversity may be low, numbers are high, the process by which plants become acclimated to cold temperatures is called hardening. In some areas, ice has scoured rock surfaces bare, entirely stripping off the overburden, elsewhere rock basins have been formed and stream courses dammed, creating countless lakes. The Tatra Mountains in Poland, above 800m, the Eastern Anatolia, between 1,600 and 2,100 meters – Turkey. The Pyrenees, between 1,600 and 2,100 meters – Andorra, France and Spain, further north in Siberia, continentality increases so much that winters can be exceptionally severe, averaging below −38 °C, even though the hottest month still averages more than 10 °C. This creates Dfd, Dwd and Dsd climates, one example is parts of the Snowy Mountains in Australia, although theyre more alpine than true subarctic. In China and Mongolia, as one moves southwestwards or towards lower altitudes, temperatures increase, Boreal ecology Boreal forest Plants of continental subarctic climate Köppen climate classification Subantarctic
12.
Permafrost
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In geology, permafrost is ground, including rock or soil, at or below the freezing point of water 0 °C for two or more years. Most permafrost is located in high latitudes, but alpine permafrost may exist at altitudes in much lower latitudes. Ground ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, Permafrost accounts for 0. 022% of total water on earth and exists in 24% of exposed land in the Northern Hemisphere. It also occurs subsea on the shelves of the continents surrounding the Arctic Ocean, portions of which were exposed during the last glacial period. A global temperature rise of 1.5 °C above current levels would be enough to start the thawing of permafrost in Siberia, Permafrost is soil, rock or sediment that is frozen for more than two consecutive years. In areas not overlain by ice, it exists beneath a layer of soil, rock or sediment, in practice, this means that permafrost occurs at an average air temperature of -2 °C or colder. Active layer thickness varies with the season, but is 0.3 to 4 meters thick, in the Northern Hemisphere, 24% of the ice-free land area, equivalent to 19 million square kilometers, is more or less influenced by permafrost. Most of this area is found in Siberia, northern Canada, Alaska, beneath the active layer annual temperature swings of permafrost become smaller with depth. The deepest depth of permafrost occurs where geothermal heat maintains a temperature above freezing, above that bottom limit there may be permafrost, whose temperature doesnt change annually—isothermal permafrost. The extent of permafrost varies with the climate, today, a considerable area of the Arctic is covered by permafrost. Overlying permafrost is an active layer that seasonally thaws during the summer. Plant life can be supported only within the active layer since growth can occur only in soil that is fully thawed for some part of the year, thickness of the active layer varies by year and location, but is typically 0. 6–4 m thick. In areas of continuous permafrost and harsh winters, the depth of the permafrost can exceed 1,400 m, Permafrost can also store carbon, both as peat and as methane. Work investigating the permafrost carbon pool size estimates that 1400–1700 Gt of carbon is stored in the northern circumpolar permafrost region, while a recent study that includes stores of the Tibetan Plateau, estimates total carbon pools in the permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere to be 1832 Gt. This large carbon pool represents more carbon than currently exists in all living things, Permafrost typically forms in any climate where the mean annual air temperature is less than the freezing point of water. Exceptions are found in moist-wintered forest climates, such as in Northern Scandinavia and the North-Eastern part of European Russia west of the Urals, fossil cold anomalies in the Geothermal gradient in areas where deep permafrost developed during the Pleistocene persist down to several hundred metres. This is evident from temperature measurements in boreholes in North America, typically, the below-ground temperature varies less from season to season than the air temperature, with mean annual temperatures tending to increase with depth. Thus, if the annual air temperature is only slightly below 0 °C
13.
Tundra
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In physical geography, tundra is a type of biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr uplands, there are three types of tundra, Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra. In tundra, the vegetation is composed of shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses. Scattered trees grow in tundra regions. The ecotone between the tundra and the forest is known as the line or timberline. Arctic tundra occurs in the far Northern Hemisphere, north of the taiga belt, the word tundra usually refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen soil. Permafrost tundra includes vast areas of northern Russia and Canada, the polar tundra is home to several peoples who are mostly nomadic reindeer herders, such as the Nganasan and Nenets in the permafrost area. Arctic tundra contains areas of landscape and is frozen for much of the year. The soil there is frozen from 25–90 cm down, and it is impossible for trees to grow, instead, bare and sometimes rocky land can only support low growing plants such as moss, heath, and lichen. There are two seasons, winter and summer, in the polar tundra areas. During the winter it is cold and dark, with the average temperature around −28 °C. However, extreme temperatures on the tundra do not drop as low as those experienced in taiga areas further south. During the summer, temperatures rise somewhat, and the top layer of seasonally-frozen soil melts, the tundra is covered in marshes, lakes, bogs and streams during the warm months. Generally daytime temperatures during the rise to about 12 °C. Arctic tundras are sometimes the subject of conservation programs. In Canada and Russia, many of areas are protected through a national Biodiversity Action Plan. Tundra tends to be windy, with winds often blowing upwards of 50–100 km/h, however, in terms of precipitation, it is desert-like, with only about 15–25 cm falling per year. Although precipitation is light, evaporation is also relatively minimal, there is a natural pattern of accumulation of fuel and wildfire which varies depending on the nature of vegetation and terrain
14.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
15.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
16.
Tin
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Tin is a chemical element with symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a metal in group 14 of the periodic table. It is obtained chiefly from the mineral cassiterite, which contains tin dioxide, Tin shows a chemical similarity to both of its neighbors in group 14, germanium and lead, and has two main oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4. Tin is the 49th most abundant element and has, with 10 stable isotopes, metallic tin is not easily oxidized in air. The first alloy used on a scale was bronze, made of tin and copper. After 600 BC, pure metallic tin was produced, pewter, which is an alloy of 85–90% tin with the remainder commonly consisting of copper, antimony, and lead, was used for flatware from the Bronze Age until the 20th century. In modern times, tin is used in alloys, most notably tin/lead soft solders. Another large application for tin is corrosion-resistant tin plating of steel, inorganic tin compounds are rather non-toxic. Because of its low toxicity, tin-plated metal was used for packaging as tin cans. However, overexposure to tin may cause problems with metabolizing essential trace elements such as copper and zinc, Tin is a soft, malleable, ductile and highly crystalline silvery-white metal. When a bar of tin is bent, a sound known as the tin cry can be heard from the twinning of the crystals. Tin melts at the low temperature of about 232 °C, the lowest in group 14, the melting point is further lowered to 177.3 °C for 11 nm particles. β-tin, which is stable at and above room temperature, is malleable, in contrast, α-tin, which is stable below 13.2 °C, is brittle. α-tin has a cubic crystal structure, similar to diamond. α-tin has no properties at all because its atoms form a covalent structure in which electrons cannot move freely. It is a dull-gray powdery material with no common uses other than a few specialized semiconductor applications and these two allotropes, α-tin and β-tin, are more commonly known as gray tin and white tin, respectively. Two more allotropes, γ and σ, exist at temperatures above 161 °C, in cold conditions, β-tin tends to transform spontaneously into α-tin, a phenomenon known as tin pest. Commercial grades of tin resist transformation because of the effect of the small amounts of bismuth, antimony, lead
17.
Tungsten
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Tungsten, also known as wolfram, is a chemical element with symbol W and atomic number 74. The word tungsten comes from the Swedish language tung sten, which translates to heavy stone. Its name in Swedish is volfram, however, in order to distinguish it from scheelite, a hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth almost exclusively in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as a metal in 1783 and its important ores include wolframite and scheelite. The free element is remarkable for its robustness, especially the fact that it has the highest melting point of all the elements discovered, melting at 3,422 °C,6,192 °F. Its high density is 19.3 times that of water, comparable to that of uranium and gold, polycrystalline tungsten is an intrinsically brittle and hard material, making it difficult to work. However, pure single-crystalline tungsten is more ductile, and can be cut with a hard-steel hacksaw, tungstens many alloys have numerous applications, including incandescent light bulb filaments, X-ray tubes, electrodes in TIG welding, superalloys, and radiation shielding. Tungstens hardness and high density give it military applications in penetrating projectiles, tungsten compounds are also often used as industrial catalysts. Tungsten is the metal from the third transition series that is known to occur in biomolecules. It is the heaviest element known to be essential to any living organism, tungsten interferes with molybdenum and copper metabolism and is somewhat toxic to animal life. In its raw form, tungsten is a hard metal that is often brittle. If made very pure, tungsten retains its hardness, and becomes malleable enough that it can be worked easily and it is worked by forging, drawing, or extruding. Tungsten objects are commonly formed by sintering. Of all metals in pure form, tungsten has the highest melting point, lowest vapor pressure, although carbon remains solid at higher temperatures than tungsten, carbon sublimes, rather than melts, so tungsten is considered to have a higher melting point. Tungsten has the lowest coefficient of expansion of any pure metal. The low thermal expansion and high melting point and tensile strength of tungsten originate from strong covalent bonds formed between tungsten atoms by the 5d electrons, alloying small quantities of tungsten with steel greatly increases its toughness. Tungsten exists in two crystalline forms, α and β. The former has a cubic structure and is the more stable form
18.
Mercury (element)
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Mercury is a chemical element with symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is commonly known as quicksilver and was formerly named hydrargyrum, Mercury occurs in deposits throughout the world mostly as cinnabar. The red pigment vermilion is obtained by grinding natural cinnabar or synthetic mercuric sulfide, likewise, mechanical pressure gauges and electronic strain gauge sensors have replaced mercury sphygmomanometers. Mercury remains in use in research applications and in amalgam for dental restoration in some locales. It is used in fluorescent lighting, electricity passed through mercury vapor in a fluorescent lamp produces short-wave ultraviolet light which then causes the phosphor in the tube to fluoresce, making visible light. Mercury poisoning can result from exposure to water-soluble forms of mercury, Mercury is a heavy, silvery-white liquid metal. Compared to other metals, it is a conductor of heat. It has a point of −38.83 °C and a boiling point of 356.73 °C. Upon freezing, the volume of mercury decreases by 3. 59%, the coefficient of volume expansion is 181.59 × 10−6 at 0 °C,181.71 × 10−6 at 20 °C and 182.50 × 10−6 at 100 °C. Solid mercury is malleable and ductile and can be cut with a knife, because this configuration strongly resists removal of an electron, mercury behaves similarly to noble gases, which form weak bonds and hence melt at low temperatures. The stability of the 6s shell is due to the presence of a filled 4f shell, an f shell poorly screens the nuclear charge that increases the attractive Coulomb interaction of the 6s shell and the nucleus. Like silver, mercury reacts with hydrogen sulfide. Mercury reacts with solid sulfur flakes, which are used in mercury spill kits to absorb mercury, Mercury dissolves many other metals such as gold and silver to form amalgams. Iron is an exception, and iron flasks have traditionally used to trade mercury. Several other first row transition metals with the exception of manganese, copper, other elements that do not readily form amalgams with mercury include platinum. Sodium amalgam is a reducing agent in organic synthesis, and is also used in high-pressure sodium lamps. Mercury readily combines with aluminium to form a mercury-aluminium amalgam when the two pure metals come into contact, since the amalgam destroys the aluminium oxide layer which protects metallic aluminium from oxidizing in-depth, even small amounts of mercury can seriously corrode aluminium. For this reason, mercury is not allowed aboard an aircraft under most circumstances because of the risk of it forming an amalgam with exposed aluminium parts in the aircraft, Mercury embrittlement is the most common type of liquid metal embrittlement
19.
Copper
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Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
20.
Antimony
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Antimony is a chemical element with symbol Sb and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite, Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were powdered for use as medicine and cosmetics, often known by the Arabic name, kohl. Metallic antimony was known, but it was erroneously identified as lead upon its discovery. In the West, it was first isolated by Vannoccio Biringuccio, for some time, China has been the largest producer of antimony and its compounds, with most production coming from the Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan. The industrial methods for refining antimony are roasting and reduction with carbon or direct reduction of stibnite with iron, the largest applications for metallic antimony is an alloy with lead and tin and the lead antimony plates in lead–acid batteries. Alloys of lead and tin with antimony have improved properties for solders, bullets, Antimony compounds are prominent additives for chlorine and bromine-containing fire retardants found in many commercial and domestic products. An emerging application is the use of antimony in microelectronics, Antimony is in a pnictogen and has an electronegativity of 2.05. In accordance with periodic trends, it is more electronegative than tin or bismuth, Antimony is stable in air at room temperature, but reacts with oxygen if heated to produce antimony trioxide, Sb2O3. Antimony is resistant to attack by acids, four allotropes of antimony are known, a stable metallic form and three metastable forms. Elemental antimony is a brittle, silver-white shiny metalloid, when slowly cooled, molten antimony crystallizes in a trigonal cell, isomorphic with the gray allotrope of arsenic. A rare explosive form of antimony can be formed from the electrolysis of antimony trichloride, when scratched with a sharp implement, an exothermic reaction occurs and white fumes are given off as metallic antimony forms, when rubbed with a pestle in a mortar, a strong detonation occurs. Black antimony is formed upon cooling of antimony vapor. It has the crystal structure as red phosphorus and black arsenic, it oxidizes in air. At 100 °C, it transforms into the stable form. The yellow allotrope of antimony is the most unstable and it has only been generated by oxidation of stibine at −90 °C. Above this temperature and in ambient light, this metastable allotrope transforms into the more stable black allotrope, elemental antimony adopts a layered structure in which layers consist of fused, ruffled, six-membered rings. The nearest and next-nearest neighbors form an octahedral complex, with the three atoms in each double layer slightly closer than the three atoms in the next. This relatively close packing leads to a density of 6.697 g/cm3
21.
Coal
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Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, after that bituminous coal. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time, throughout history, coal has been used as an energy resource, primarily burned for the production of electricity and heat, and is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals. Coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide, the extraction of coal, its use in energy production and its byproducts are all associated with environmental and health effects including climate change. Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, since 1983, the worlds top coal producer has been China. In 2015 China produced 3,747 million tonnes of coal –47. 7% of 7,861 million tonnes world coal production, in 2015 other large producers were United States, India, European Union and Australia. The word originally took the col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula. In Old Turkic languages, kül is ash, cinders, öčür is quench, the compound charcoal in Turkic is öčür kül, literally quenched ashes, cinders, coals with elided anlaut ö- and inflection affixes -ülmüş. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas, due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil. As more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed, the temperature also rose as they sank deeper and deeper. As the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation and this trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were eventually covered and deeply buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was slowly converted to coal, as coal contains mainly carbon, the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called carbonization. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, the exception is the coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants — this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae, in its dehydrated form, peat is a highly effective absorbent for fuel and oil spills on land and water. It is also used as a conditioner for soil to make it able to retain. Lignite, or brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal, jet, a compact form of lignite, is sometimes polished and has been used as an ornamental stone since the Upper Palaeolithic
22.
Peat
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Peat, also called turf, is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter that is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet because peatland plants capture the CO2 which is released from the peat. Sphagnum moss is one of the most common components in peat, soils that contain mostly peat are known as histosols. Peat forms in wetland conditions, where flooding obstructs flows of oxygen from the atmosphere, Peatlands, particularly bogs, are the most important source of peat. That said, other less common types, including fens, pocosins. Landscapes covered in peat are home to specific kinds of plants including Sphagnum moss, ericaceous shrubs, because organic matter accumulates over thousands of years, peat deposits also provide records of past vegetation and climates stored in plant remains like pollen. This allows humans to reconstruct past environments and study changes in land use. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world, by volume, there are about 4 trillion cubic metres of peat in the world, covering a total of around 2% of the global land area, containing about 8 billion terajoules of energy. Over time, the formation of peat is often the first step in the formation of other fossil fuels such as coal. This is also the commonly used in the peat industry. At 106 g CO2/MJ, the carbon dioxide emission intensity of peat is higher than that of coal and natural gas, lastly, peat fires have been responsible for large public health disasters including the 1997 Southeast Asian haze. Peat forms when plant material does not fully decay in acidic and anaerobic conditions and it is composed mainly of wetland vegetation, principally bog plants including mosses, sedges, and shrubs. As it accumulates, the peat holds water and this slowly creates wetter conditions that allow the area of wetland to expand. Peatland features can include ponds, ridges, and raised bogs, most modern peat bogs formed 12,000 years ago in high latitudes after the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age. Peat usually accumulates slowly at the rate of about a millimetre per year, using Carbon-dating, scientists found that Peat in peatlands started forming 360 million years ago based on it currently containing 550 Gt of carbon. Peat material is either fibric, hemic, or sapric, fibric peats are the least decomposed and consist of intact fiber. Hemic peats are partially decomposed and sapric are the most decomposed, Phragmites peat is one composed of reed grass, Phragmites australis, and other grasses. It is denser than other types of peat
23.
Magadan
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Magadan is a port town and the administrative center of Magadan Oblast, Russia, located on the Sea of Okhotsk in Nagayevo Bay in Taui Bay and serving as a gateway to the Kolyma region. Magadan was founded in 1930 in the Magadan River valley, near the settlement of Nagayevo, during the Stalin era, Magadan was a major transit center for prisoners sent to labor camps. From 1932 to 1953, it was the center of the Dalstroy organization—a vast and brutal forced-labor gold-mining operation. The town later served as a port for exporting gold and other metals mined in the Kolyma region and its size and population grew quickly as facilities were rapidly developed for the expanding mining activities in the area. Town status was granted to it on July 14,1939, Magadan was visited by U. S. Vice-President Henry Wallace in May 1944. He took an instant liking to his secret policeman host, admired handiwork done by prisoners, Magadan is the administrative center of the oblast. As a municipal division, the town of oblast significance of Magadan is incorporated as Magadan Urban Okrug, ship building and fishing are the major industries. The town has a seaport and an international airport, Sokol Airport. There is also an airport nearby, Magadan 13. The unpaved Kolyma Highway leads from Magadan to the rich gold-mining region of the upper Kolyma River and then on to Yakutsk. The nearest major city available by road is Yakutsk,2,000 kilometers away via a road which is best used in the winter. The principal sources of income for the economy are gold mining. Fishing production, although improving from year to year, is well below the allocated quotas. Other local industries include pasta and sausage plants and a distillery, although farming is difficult owing to the harsh climate, there are many public and private farming enterprises. The town has a number of institutions including the Regional Museum of Anthropology, a geological museum, a regional library. The Church of the Nativity is actually a part of the diocese of Anchorage, Alaska and it is staffed by several priests and nuns. The climate of Magadan is subarctic, winters are prolonged and very cold, with up to six months of sub-zero high temperatures, so that the soil remains permanently frozen. Permafrost and tundra cover most of the region, the growing season is only one hundred days long
24.
Eskimo
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The Eskimo are the indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the northern circumpolar region from eastern Siberia, across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. The two main peoples known as Eskimo are, the Alaskan Inupiat peoples, Greenlandic Inuit, and the mass-grouping Inuit peoples of Canada, and the Yupik of eastern Siberia and Alaska. The Yupik comprise speakers of four distinct Yupik languages, one used in the Russian Far East, a third northern group, the Aleut, is closely related to the Eskimo. They share a relatively recent common ancestor, and a language group, a member of an indigenous people inhabiting northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and eastern Siberia, and traditionally living by hunting seals and other Arctic animals and birds and by fishing. In its linguistic origins, the word Eskimo comes from Innu-aimun ayas̆kimew meaning a person who laces a snowshoe and is related to husky, so does not have a direct pejorative meaning. In Canada and Greenland, the term Eskimo is seen as pejorative by some and has been replaced by the term Inuit or terms specific to a particular nation or community. This has resulted in a trend whereby some Canadians and Americans believe that they should not use the word Eskimo and use the Canadian word Inuit instead, the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, sections 25 and 35 recognized the Inuit as a distinctive group of aboriginal peoples in Canada. Under U. S. and Alaskan law, Alaska Native refers to all peoples of Alaska. As a result, the term Eskimo is still in use in Alaska, alternative terms, such as Inuit-Yupik, have been proposed, but none has gained widespread acceptance. Several earlier indigenous peoples existed in the region, the earliest positively identified North American Eskimo cultures date to 5,000 years ago. They appear to have developed in Alaska from people related to the Arctic small tool tradition in eastern Asia, similar artifacts have been found in Siberia that date to perhaps 18,000 years ago. The Yupik languages and cultures in Alaska evolved in place, beginning with the original pre-Dorset indigenous culture developed in Alaska, approximately 4000 years ago, the Unangan culture of the Aleut became distinct. It is not generally considered an Eskimo culture, approximately 1500–2000 years ago, apparently in Northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. Inuit language became distinct and, over a period of centuries, its speakers migrated across Northern Alaska, through Canada. The distinct culture of the Thule people developed in northwestern Alaska and very quickly spread over the area occupied by Eskimo people. Two principal competing etymologies have been proposed for the name Eskimo, the most commonly accepted today appears to be the proposal of Ives Goddard at the Smithsonian Institution, who derives the term from the Montagnais word meaning snowshoe-netter or to net snowshoes. The word assime·w means she laces a snowshoe in Montagnais, Montagnais speakers refer to the neighbouring Mikmaq people using words that sound very much like eskimo. In 1978, Jose Mailhot, a Quebec anthropologist who speaks Montagnais, french traders who encountered the Montagnais in the eastern areas, adopted their word for the more western peoples and spelled it as Esquimau in a transliteration
25.
Chukchi people
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The Chukchi originated from the people living around the Okhotsk Sea. Some Chukchi also reside in parts of Russia, as well as in Europe. The total number of Chukchi in the world slightly exceeds 16,000, the Russian name Chukchi is derived from the Chukchi word Chauchu, which was used by the Reindeer Chukchi to distinguish themselves from the Maritime Chukchi, called Anqallyt. Their name for a member of the Chukchi ethnic group as a whole is Luoravetlan, in Chukchi religion, every object, whether animate or inanimate, is assigned a spirit. This spirit can be harmful or beneficial. Some of Chukchi myths reveal a dualistic cosmology, in the 1920s, the Soviet Union prohibited Chukchi religious practices and tried to suppress their religion. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the farms were reorganized. This process was ultimately destructive to the economy in Chukotka. The region has not fully recovered. Many rural Chukchi, as well as Russians in Chukotkas villages, have survived in recent years only with the help of humanitarian aid. Some Chukchi have attained university degrees, becoming poets, writers, politicians, teachers, in prehistoric times, the Chukchi engaged in nomadic hunter gatherer modes of existence. In current times, there continue to be elements of subsistence hunting, including that of polar bears, marine mammals. Beginning in the 1920s, the Soviets organized the activities of both coastal and inland Chukchi and eventually established 28 collectively run, state-owned enterprises in Chukotka. All of these were based on reindeer herding, with the addition of sea mammal hunting, Chukchi were educated in Soviet schools and today are almost 100% literate and fluent in the Russian language. Only a portion of them work directly in reindeer herding or sea mammal hunting. Russians first began contacting the Chukchi when they reached the Kolyma River, the route from Nizhnekolymsk to the fort at Anadyrsk along the southwest of the main Chukchi area became a major trade route. The overland journey from Yakutsk to Anadyrsk took about six months, the Chukchi were generally ignored for the next 50 years because they were warlike and had few furs. Fighting flared up around 1700 when the Russians began operating in the Kamchatka Peninsula and needed to protect their communications from the Chukchi, the first attempt to conquer them was made in 1701
26.
Koryaks
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Koryaks are an indigenous people of the Russian Far East, who live immediately north of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Kamchatka Krai and inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea. The cultural borders of the Koryaks include Tigilsk in the south, the Koryaks are culturally similar to the Chukchis of extreme north-east Siberia. Both peoples refer to themselves by the endonym Luorawetlan, meaning the real people, the Koryak language and Alutor, are linguistically close to the Chukchi language. All of these languages are members of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family and they are more distantly related to the Itelmens on the Kamchatka Peninsula. All of these peoples and other, unrelated minorities in and around Kamchatka are known collectively as Kamchadals, neighbors of the Koryaks include the Evens to the west, the Alutor to the south, the Kerek to the east, and the Chukchi to the northeast. The Koryak are typically split into two groups, the coastal people Nemelan meaning village dwellers, due to their living in villages and their lifestyle is based on local fishing and marine mammal hunting. The inland Koryak, reindeer herders, are called Chaucu, meaning rich in reindeer and they are more nomadic, following the herds as they graze with the seasons. According to the 2010 census, there were 7,953 Koryaks in Russia, the name Koryak was from the exonym word Korak, meaning with the reindeer in a nearby group Chukotko-Kamchatkan language. The earliest references to the name Koryak were recorded in the writings of the Russian cossack Vladimir Atlasov, the variant name was adopted by Russia in official state documents, hence popularizing it ever since. The origin of the Koryak is unknown, anthropologists have speculated that a land bridge connected the Eurasian and North American continent during Late Pleistocene. It is possible that migratory peoples crossed the modern-day Koryak land en route to North America, scientists have suggested that people traveled back and forth between this area and Haida Gwaii before the ice age receded. They theorize that the ancestors of the Koryak had returned to Siberian Asia from North America during this time, cultural and some linguistic similarity exist between the Nivkh and the Koryak. The Koryak once occupied a larger area of the Russian Far East. Their overlapping borders extended to the Nivkh areas in Khabarovsk Krai until the Evens arrived, a smallpox epidemic in 1769-1770 and warfare with Russian Cossacks reduced the Koryak population from 10-11,000 in 1700 to 4,800 in 1800. Under the Soviet Union, a Koryak Autonomous Okrug was formed in 1931, based on the local referendum in 2005, this was merged with Kamchatka Krai effective July 1,2007. Families usually gathered into groups of six or seven, forming bands, the nominal chief had no predominating authority, and the groups relied on consensus to make decisions, resembling common small group egalitarianism. The lives of the people in the interior revolved around reindeer and they also used all the parts of its body to make sewing materials and clothing, tools and weapons. The meat was eaten roasted and the blood, marrow
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Evens
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The Evens are a people in Siberia and the Russian Far East. They live in some of the regions of the Magadan Oblast and Kamchatka Krai, according to the 2002 census, there were 19,071 Evens in Russia. According to the 2010 census, there were 22,383 Evens in Russia and they even speak their own language called Even language, one of the Tungusic languages. The Evens are close to the Evenks by their origins and culture, officially, they were considered to be of Orthodox faith since the 19th century, but the Evens managed to preserve different forms of non-Christian beliefs, such as shamanism. Traditional Even life is centred upon nomadic pastoralism of domesticated reindeer, there were 104 Evens in Ukraine,19 of whom speaking Even. The ancestor of the Evens were believed to have migrated from the Transbaikal area to the areas of eastern Siberia. The Ewen herders also rode their reindeer, the economy was supplemented by winter hunts to obtain wild game. Hunters sometimes rode reindeer, sometimes moved along on wooden skis, today, they are all known as Eveni. The traditional lodgings of the Evens were conical tents which were covered with animal skins, in the southern coastal areas, fish skins were used. Settled Evens used a type of earth and log dugout, sheds were erected near the dwellings in order to house stocks of frozen fish and meat. The Soviet years marked significant changes for the Evens, the Soviets created a written language for them and did away with illiteracy among the Evens in the 1930s. Many nomadic Evens chose to settle down, joined the kolkhozes and engaged themselves in cattle-breeding, viktor Lebedev, freestyle wrestler James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia,1992 Vitebsky, Piers. Reindeer People, Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia, the Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire, The Evens Aboriginal Peoples of the Russian North, Links to On-Line Resources Notes on the Evens and Evenks
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Yupiks
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The Yupik are a group of indigenous or aboriginal peoples of western, southwestern, and southcentral Alaska and the Russian Far East. They are Eskimo and are related to the Inuit and Iñupiat peoples, US census data for Yupik include 2,355 Sugpiaq, there are also 1,700 Yupik living in Russia. Yupik comes from the Yupik word yuk meaning person plus the post-base -pik meaning real or genuine, thus, it means literally real people. The ethnographic literature sometimes refers to the Yupik people or their language as Yuk or Yuit, in the Hooper Bay-Chevak and Nunivak dialects of Yupik, both the language and the people are known as Cupik. The use of an apostrophe in the name Yup’ik, compared to Siberian Yupik, exemplifies the Central Yup’ik’s orthography, where the apostrophe represents gemination of the ‘p’ sound. Research on blood types, confirmed by later linguistic and DNA findings, suggests that the ancestors of American Indians reached North America before the ancestors of the Eskimo, the Siberian Yupik may represent a back-migration of the Eskimo people to Siberia from Alaska. Traditionally, families spent the spring and summer at fish camp, many families still harvest the traditional subsistence resources, especially Pacific salmon and seal. The mens communal house, the qasgiq, was the community center for ceremonies and festivals which included singing, dancing, the qasgiq was used mainly in the winter months, because people would travel in family groups following food sources throughout the spring, summer, and fall months. Aside from ceremonies and festivals, it was also where the men taught the young boys survival and hunting skills, the young boys were also taught how to make tools and qayaqs during the winter months in the qasgiq. The womens house, the ena, was right next door. In some areas they were connected by a tunnel, women taught the young girls how to tan hides and sew, process and cook game and fish, and weave. Boys would live with their mothers until they were five years old. The limited motion by no means limits the expressiveness of the dances, the Yupik are unique among native peoples of the Americas in that they name children after the last person in the community to have died. The kuspuk is a traditional Yupik garment, worn in casual and formal settings in Alaska. The seal-oil lamp was an important piece of furniture, the five Yupik languages are still very widely spoken, more than 75% of the Yupik/Yupik population are fluent in the language. The Alaskan and Siberian Yupik, like the Alaskan Inupiat, adopted the system of writing developed by Moravian Church missionaries during the 1760s in Greenland. The Alaskan Yupik and Inupiat are the only Northern indigenous peoples to have developed their own system of hieroglyphics, late nineteenth-century Moravian missionaries to the Yupik in southwestern Alaska used Yupik in church services, and translated the scriptures into the peoples language. Russian explorers in the 1800s erroneously called the Yupik people bordering the territory of the somewhat unrelated Aleut as also Aleut, or Alutiiq, in Yupik
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Chukchis
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The Chukchi originated from the people living around the Okhotsk Sea. Some Chukchi also reside in parts of Russia, as well as in Europe. The total number of Chukchi in the world slightly exceeds 16,000, the Russian name Chukchi is derived from the Chukchi word Chauchu, which was used by the Reindeer Chukchi to distinguish themselves from the Maritime Chukchi, called Anqallyt. Their name for a member of the Chukchi ethnic group as a whole is Luoravetlan, in Chukchi religion, every object, whether animate or inanimate, is assigned a spirit. This spirit can be harmful or beneficial. Some of Chukchi myths reveal a dualistic cosmology, in the 1920s, the Soviet Union prohibited Chukchi religious practices and tried to suppress their religion. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the farms were reorganized. This process was ultimately destructive to the economy in Chukotka. The region has not fully recovered. Many rural Chukchi, as well as Russians in Chukotkas villages, have survived in recent years only with the help of humanitarian aid. Some Chukchi have attained university degrees, becoming poets, writers, politicians, teachers, in prehistoric times, the Chukchi engaged in nomadic hunter gatherer modes of existence. In current times, there continue to be elements of subsistence hunting, including that of polar bears, marine mammals. Beginning in the 1920s, the Soviets organized the activities of both coastal and inland Chukchi and eventually established 28 collectively run, state-owned enterprises in Chukotka. All of these were based on reindeer herding, with the addition of sea mammal hunting, Chukchi were educated in Soviet schools and today are almost 100% literate and fluent in the Russian language. Only a portion of them work directly in reindeer herding or sea mammal hunting. Russians first began contacting the Chukchi when they reached the Kolyma River, the route from Nizhnekolymsk to the fort at Anadyrsk along the southwest of the main Chukchi area became a major trade route. The overland journey from Yakutsk to Anadyrsk took about six months, the Chukchi were generally ignored for the next 50 years because they were warlike and had few furs. Fighting flared up around 1700 when the Russians began operating in the Kamchatka Peninsula and needed to protect their communications from the Chukchi, the first attempt to conquer them was made in 1701
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Orochs
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Orochs, Orochons, or Orochis are a people of Russia that speak the Oroch language of the Southern group of Tungusic languages. According to the 2002 census there were 686 Orochs in Russia, according to the 2010 census there were 596 Orochs in Russia. Orochs traditionally settled in the part of the Khabarovsk Krai, Russia and on the Amur. In the 19th century, some of them migrated to Sakhalin, in the early 1930s, the Orochi National District was created, but was cancelled shortly thereafter due to lack of native population. Because the people never had a language, they were educated in the Russian language. Their language, Oroch, is on the verge of extinction and they follow Shamanism, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Buddhism. The Orochis in The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire Ethnologue link
31.
Itelmens
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The Itelmen, sometimes known as Kamchadal, are an ethnic group who are the original inhabitants living on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. A. P. Volodin has published a grammar of the Itelmen language, the Itelmen had a substantial hunter-gatherer and fishing society with up to fifty thousand natives inhabiting the peninsula before they were decimated by the Cossack conquest in the 18th century. By 1993, there were less than 100 elderly speakers of the language left, by 2002, this number had risen to 3,180, and there are attempts at reviving the language. According to the 2010 census, there were 3,193 Itelmen in Russia, ethnographic maps shows the Itlemens as residing primarily in the valley of the Kamchatka River in the middle of the peninsula. One of the few sources describing the Itelmen prior to assimilation with the Russians is that of Georg Wilhelm Steller. Itelmen tended to settle along the rivers of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Each village was centered around a patriarchal household. Generally, young men seeking marriage joined the village of their wife, when a village became too large to sustain itself, it was divided and a portion of the villagers would create a settlement at another point along the same river. Steller describes a variation of dialects from river to river. Itelmen lived in different houses during the summer and winter seasons, the winter house, which was inhabited beginning in November, was dug into the soil 3–5 ft in the shape of a rectangle. The walls were covered with sticks and straw to prevent moisture from penetrating the interior. 4 beams at the center of the supported the roof of the house, upon which rafters were laid. Atop the wooden rafters, approximately a foot of straw was laid, an opening atop the yurt, off to one side of the four posts and supported by the two beams served as a smoke hole and an entrance. Opposite the fireplace, they made a passageway to the outside facing the river, Different sleeping quarters were demarked by pieces of wood, on which straw mats and reindeer or seal skins were used to sleep. In the summer months, the Itelmen live in raised houses called pehm or pehmy, as the ground thaws in the summer, the floors of the winter houses began to flood. In the summer months, each family in the village lived in their own house and these raised homes or balagans as the Cossacks called them, were pyramids on raised platforms, with a door on the south and the north side. The extreme moisture of the climate required the raising of the homes for dry storage, most villages, in addition to summer and winter houses, contained straw huts built on the ground, which were used for cooking dog food, boiling salt from sea water and rendering fat. Before the arrival of the Russians, villages were surrounded by a wall or palisades after which this practice was banned
32.
Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
33.
Gulag
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The Gulag was the government agency that administered and controlled the Soviet forced-labor camp system during Joseph Stalins rule from the 1930s up until the 1950s. The term is commonly used to reference any forced-labor camp in the Soviet Union. The camps housed a range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners. Large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas, the Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The agencys full name was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and it was administered first by the State Political Administration, later by the NKVD and in the final years by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s, the author likened the scattered camps to a chain of islands and as an eyewitness he described the Gulag as a system where people were worked to death. Natalya Reshetovskaya, the wife of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said in her memoirs that The Gulag Archipelago was based on folklore as opposed to objective facts. In March 1940, there were 53 Gulag camp directorates and 423 labor colonies in the USSR, todays major industrial cities of the Russian Arctic, such as Norilsk, Vorkuta, and Magadan, were originally camps built by prisoners and run by ex-prisoners. About 14 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag labor camps from 1929 to 1953, according to some estimates, the total population of the camps varied from 510,307 in 1934 to 1,727,970 in 1953. According with other estimates, at the beginning of 1953 the total number of prisoners in prison camps was more than 2.4 million of more than 465,000 were political prisoners. The institutional analysis of the Soviet concentration system is complicated by the distinction between GULAG and GUPVI. In many ways the GUPVI system was similar to GULAG and its major function was the organization of foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union. The top management of GUPVI came from the GULAG system, the major noted distinction from GULAG was the absence of convicted criminals in the GUPVI camps. Otherwise the conditions in both systems were similar, hard labor, poor nutrition and living conditions, and high mortality rate. According with the estimates, in total, during the period of the existence of GUPVI there were over 500 POW camps. According to a 1993 study of archival Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934–53. Some independent estimates are as low as 1.6 million deaths during the period from 1929 to 1953. Most Gulag inmates were not political prisoners, although significant numbers of prisoners could be found in the camps at any one time
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Labor camp
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A labor camp or work camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment under the criminal code. Labor camps have many aspects with slavery and with prisons. Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators, some of those camps were dubbed reeducation facilities for political coercion, but most others served as backbone of industry and agriculture for the benefit of the state especially in times of war. Labor camps of forced labor were abolished by Convention no.105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization, albania Allied Forces The Allies of World War II operated a number of work camps after the war. At the Yalta Conference in 1945, it was agreed that German forced labor was to be utilized as reparations, see Forced labor of Germans after World War II. Bulgaria Burma According to the New Statesman, Burmese military government operated, from 1962 to 2011, China The anti-communist Kuomintang operated various camps between 1938 and 1949, including the Northwestern Youth Labor Camp for young activists and students. The Communist Party of China has operated many labor camps for some crimes at least since taking power in 1949, many leaders of China were put into labor camps after purges, including Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi. May Seventh Cadre Schools are an example of Cultural Revolution-era labor camps, According to CNN, hundreds — if not thousands — of labor camps and forced-labor prisons still exist in modern-day China, housing political prisoners and dissidents alongside dangerous criminals. Chinese state-run media Xinhua reported in early 2013 that the plans to reform its controversial re-education through labor system this year. Cuba Beginning in November 1965, people classified as against the government were summoned to work camps referred to as Military Units to Aid Production, Czechoslovakia After the communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948, many forced labor camps were created. The inmates included political prisoners, clergy, kulaks, Boy Scouts leaders, about half of the prisoners worked in the uranium mines. Also between 1950 and 1954 many men were considered unreliable for compulsory military service, and were conscripted to labour battalions instead. Nazi Germany During World War II the Nazis operated several categories of Arbeitslager for different categories of inmates, the largest number of them held Jewish civilians forcibly abducted in the occupied countries to provide labor in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges or work on farms. By 1944,19. 9% of all workers were foreigners, the Nazis employed many slave laborers. They also operated concentration camps, some of which provided free forced labor for industrial, a notable example is the Mittelbau-Dora labor camp complex that serviced the production of the V-2 rocket. See List of German concentration camps for more, the Nazi camps played a key role in the extermination of millions. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of the overwork, malnutrition, preventable disease. North Korea North Korea is known to six camps with prison-labor colonies in remote mountain valleys
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Gold mining
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Gold mining is the resource extraction of gold by mining. As of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes, the second-largest producer, Australia, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, followed by Russia with 250 tonnes. It is impossible to know the date that humans first began to mine gold. The graves of the necropolis were built between 4700 and 4200 BC, indicating that gold mining could be at least 7000 years old. A group of German and Georgian archaeologists claims the Sakdrisi site in southern Georgia, dating to the 3rd or 4th millennium BC, bronze age gold objects are plentiful, especially in Ireland and Spain, and there are several well known possible sources. Romans used hydraulic mining methods, such as hushing and ground sluicing on a scale to extract gold from extensive alluvial deposits. Mining was under the control of the state but the mines may have been leased to civilian contractors some time later, Gold was a prime motivation for the campaign in Dacia when the Romans invaded Transylvania in what is now modern Romania in the second century AD. The legions were led by the emperor Trajan, and their exploits are shown on Trajans Column in Rome, under the Eastern Roman Empire Emperor Justinians rule, gold was mined in the Balkans, Anatolia, Armenia, Egypt, and Nubia. In the area of the Kolar Gold Fields in Bangarpet Taluk, Kolar District of Karnataka state, India, gold was first mined prior to the 2nd and 3rd century AD by digging small pits. The Champion reef at the Kolar gold fields was mined to a depth of 50 metres during the Gupta period in the fifth century AD, during the Chola period in the 9th and 10th century AD, the scale of the operation grew. The metal continued to be mined by the eleventh century kings of South India, the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1560, and later by Tipu Sultan, the king of Mysore state and it is estimated that the total gold production in Karnataka to date is 1000 tons. The mining of the Slovak deposit primarily around Kremnica was the largest of the Medieval period in Europe, the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand led to the Second Boer War and ultimately the founding of South Africa. The Carlin Trend of Nevada, U. S. was discovered in 1961, as of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes/year. The second-largest producer, Australia, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, despite the decreasing gold content of ores, the production is increasing. This can be achieved with industrial installations, and new process, placer mining is the technique by which gold that has accumulated in a placer deposit is extracted. Placer deposits are composed of loose material that makes tunneling difficult. Gold panning is mostly a manual technique of separating gold from other materials, wide, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. The pan is submerged in water and shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel, as gold is much denser than rock, it quickly settles to the bottom of the pan
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer. He was a critic of the Soviet Union and communism. He was allowed to only one work in the Soviet Union, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. After this he had to publish in the West, most notably Cancer Ward, August 1914, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature. Solzhenitsyn was afraid to go to Stockholm to receive his award for fear that he would not be allowed to reenter and he was eventually expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, but returned to Russia in 1994 after the states dissolution. Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, RSFSR and his mother, Taisiya Zakharovna was of Ukrainian descent. Her father had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy landowner, during World War I, Taisiya went to Moscow to study. While there she met and married Isaakiy Solzhenitsyn, a officer in the Imperial Russian Army of Cossack origins. The family background of his parents is vividly brought to life in the chapters of August 1914. In 1918, Taisia became pregnant with Aleksandr, on 15 June, shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, Isaakiy was killed in a hunting accident. Aleksandr was raised by his mother and aunt in lowly circumstances. His earliest years coincided with the Russian Civil War, by 1930 the family property had been turned into a collective farm. Later, Solzhenitsyn recalled that his mother had fought for survival and his educated mother encouraged his literary and scientific learnings and raised him in the Russian Orthodox faith, she died in 1944. As early as 1936, Solzhenitsyn began developing the characters and concepts for an epic work on World War I. This eventually led to the novel August 1914 – some of the chapters he wrote then still survive, Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics at Rostov State University. At the same time he took courses from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. As he himself makes clear, he did not question the state ideology or the superiority of the Soviet Union until he spent time in the camps. During the war Solzhenitsyn served as the commander of a battery in the Red Army, was involved in major action at the front
37.
The Gulag Archipelago
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The Gulag Archipelago is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about the Soviet forced labor camp system. The three-volume book is a narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, the original Russian title of the book is Arkhipelag GuLag, the rhyme supporting the underlying metaphor deployed throughout the work. The word archipelago compares the system of labor camps spread across the Soviet Union with a vast chain of islands, structurally, the text comprises seven sections divided into three volumes, parts 1–2, parts 3–4, and parts 5–7. At one level, the Gulag Archipelago traces the history of the system of forced labor camps existed in the Soviet Union from 1918 to 1956. Despite the efforts by Solzhenitsyn and others to confront the legacy of the Gulag, Solzhenitsyn also waxes philosophical, Macbeths self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeares evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses, ideology – that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own. Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn also poetically re-introduces his character of Ivan Denisovich towards the conclusion of the book. When questioned by the author if he has faithfully recounted the story of the Gulag. Much of the impact of the stems from the closely detailed stories of interrogation routines, prison indignities and camp massacres. There had been works about the Soviet prison/camp system before, however, never before had the general reading public been brought face to face with the horrors of the Gulag in this way. According to Solzhenitsyns testimony, Stalin merely amplified a concentration camp system that was already in place and this is significant, as many Western intellectuals viewed the Soviet concentration camp system as a Stalinist aberration. This put into doubt the moral standing of the Soviet system. In Western Europe the book eventually contributed strongly to a need for rethinking of the role of Lenin. George F. Kennan, the influential U. S. diplomat, called The Gulag Archipelago, in Germany, it sparked discussions not only about Leninism but also about how to deal with the memory of World War II. Solzhenitsyn entrusted Susi with the original typed and proofread manuscript of the finished work, arnold Susis daughter, Heli Susi, subsequently kept the master copy hidden from the KGB in Estonia until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The KGB seized one of three extant copies of the text still on Soviet soil
38.
Mask of Sorrow
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It consists of a large concrete statue of a face, with tears coming from the left eye in the form of small masks. The right eye is in the form of a barred window, the back side portrays a weeping young woman and a headless man on a cross. Inside is a replication of a typical Stalin-era prison cell, the statue was unveiled on June 12,1996 with the help of the Russian government and financial contributions from seven Russian cities, including Magadan. The design was created by the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, whose parents fell victim to the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, the mask stands 15 metres high and takes up 56 cubic metres of space. Decree about labor camps of 1919, in Russian A decree about penal labor,1929, in Russian
39.
Forced labour
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Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery, and related institutions. According to the Marxian economics, under capitalism, workers never keep all of the wealth they create, as some of it goes to the profit of capitalists. Slavery was common in ancient societies, including ancient Greece, ancient Rome, ancient Israel, ancient China, classical Arab states, as well as many societies in Africa. Being sold into slavery was a fate of populations conquered in wars. The term slavery is often applied to situations which do not meet the above definitions, examples are the Repartimiento system in the Spanish Empire, or the work of Indigenous Australians in northern Australia on sheep or cattle stations, from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. In the latter case, workers were rarely or never paid, in late 16th century Japan, unfree labour or slavery was officially banned, but forms of contract and indentured labour persisted alongside the period penal codes forced labour. Somewhat later, the Edo period penal laws prescribed non-free labour for the family of executed criminals in Article 17 of the Gotōke reijō. The 1711 Gotōke reijō was compiled from over 600 statutes promulgated between 1597 and 1696, according to Kevin Bales, in Disposable People, New Slavery in the Global Economy, there are now an estimated 27 million slaves in the world. Convict or prison labour is another form of unfree labour. The forced labour of convicts has often been regarded with lack of sympathy, three British colonies in Australia — New South Wales, Van Diemens Land and Western Australia — provide probably the best examples of the state use of convict labour. A considerable number of Irish convicts were sentenced to transportation for treason while fighting for Irish independence from British rule, more than 165,000 convicts were transported to Australian colonies from 1788 to 1868. Most British or Irish convicts who were sentenced to transportation, however and it is estimated that in the last 50 years more than 50 million people have been sent to Chinese laogai camps. Chinas Laogai system and North Koreas Kwalliso camps are current examples, about 12 million forced labourers, most of whom were Poles and Soviet citizens, were employed in the German war economy inside Nazi Germany. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between 4 and 10 million romusha were forced to work by the Japanese military, about 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia. Only 52,000 were repatriated to Java, meaning there was a death rate of 80%. Kerja rodi, was the term for forced labor in Indonesia during Dutch colonisation, the Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population into agricultural communes. The entire population was forced to become farmers in labour camps, a specific kind of truck system, in which credit advances are made against future work, is known in the U. S. as debt bondage. Many scholars have suggested that use such systems to exploit workers and/or indebt them
40.
Church of the Nativity (Magadan)
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Today the church stands both as a monument to the millions who died or suffered in the camps and as a source of inspiration for the local population. The church was largely through the efforts of Father Michael Shields of Anchorage who went to Magadan in 1994 specifically to care for those who had suffered in the camps. There are close contacts between Magadan and Anchorage, its twin city, the church also serves the local Polish community. In January 1991, Anchorage Archbishop Francis Hurley helped a group of Russians establish the first Roman Catholic parish in the city of Magadan. For many years parishioners worshiped in an apartment room. In 1994, Father Shields became pastor of the Parish of the Nativity but was threatened in 1997 when the local authorities tried to prevent his work on the grounds that he was not Russian. Shields took the matter to court and, perhaps rather surprisingly, in early 2001, Father Shields and his assistant Father David Means of St Louis found a piece of land suitable for the construction of a church. As a result of donations received after Fr Shields appeared on EWTN, the Catholic television network, the new building, there were serious difficulties with some of the building contractors who had to be replaced before work could continue. The central part of the structure was completed in 2002, just in time for Christmas mass to be celebrated there, work on the interior continued in 2003 leading to the churchs consecration by Bishop Kirill Klimovich of Irkutsk in 2004. The church is linked to the Kolyma labor camps and those who died there. This is apparent in the created by Russian artist Svetlana Ryanitsyna especially those in the Martyrs chapel entitled New Martyrs of Russia. The latter contains all the elements of the traditional Orthodox icon, further examples of the icons and artwork can be seen at the churchs own website. In addition, it has a mission in the village of Ola, Russia,35 km to the east. There is also a mission in Sokol, near the airport, offering help to those without employment
41.
Platinum
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Platinum is a chemical element with symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious and its name is derived from the Spanish term platina, translated into little silver. Platinum is a member of the group of elements and group 10 of the periodic table of elements. It has six naturally occurring isotopes and it is one of the rarer elements in Earths crust with an average abundance of approximately 5 μg/kg. It occurs in some nickel and copper ores along with some deposits, mostly in South Africa. Because of its scarcity in Earths crust, only a few hundred tonnes are produced annually, Platinum is one of the least reactive metals. It has remarkable resistance to corrosion, even at high temperatures, consequently, platinum is often found chemically uncombined as native platinum. Because it occurs naturally in the sands of various rivers. Platinum is used in catalytic converters, laboratory equipment, electrical contacts and electrodes, platinum resistance thermometers, dentistry equipment, and jewelry. Being a heavy metal, it leads to health issues upon exposure to its salts, compounds containing platinum, such as cisplatin, oxaliplatin and carboplatin, are applied in chemotherapy against certain types of cancer. Pure platinum is a lustrous, ductile, and malleable, silver-white metal, Platinum is more ductile than gold, silver or copper, thus being the most ductile of pure metals, but it is less malleable than gold. The metal has excellent resistance to corrosion, is stable at temperatures and has stable electrical properties. Platinum reacts with oxygen slowly at high temperatures. It reacts vigorously with fluorine at 500 °C to form platinum tetrafluoride and it is also attacked by chlorine, bromine, iodine, and sulfur. Platinum is insoluble in hydrochloric and nitric acid, but dissolves in hot aqua regia to form chloroplatinic acid and its physical characteristics and chemical stability make it useful for industrial applications. Its resistance to wear and tarnish is well suited to use in fine jewelry, the most common oxidation states of platinum are +2 and +4. The +1 and +3 oxidation states are common, and are often stabilized by metal bonding in bimetallic species. As is expected, tetracoordinate platinum compounds tend to adopt 16-electron square planar geometries, Platinum has six naturally occurring isotopes, 190Pt, 192Pt, 194Pt, 195Pt, 196Pt, and 198Pt
42.
USSR
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
43.
First Five-Year Plan
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The first five-year plan of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals, created by General Secretary Joseph Stalin and based on his policy of Socialism in One Country. It was implemented between 1928 and 1932, in 1929, Stalin edited the plan to include the creation of kolkhoz collective farming systems that stretched over thousands of acres of land and had hundreds of peasants working on them. This disruption led to a famine in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan as well as areas of the Northern Caucasus. Despite the ruinous loss of life, the introduction of collective farms allowed peasants to use tractors to farm the land, unlike before when most had been too poor to own a tractor. Public machine and tractor stations were set up throughout the USSR, peasants were allowed to sell any surplus food from the land. However, the government planners failed to notice of local situations. In 1932, grain production was 32% below average, to add to this problem, agricultural production was so disrupted that famine broke out in several districts. Because of the reliance on rapid industrialization, major cultural changes had to occur in tandem. As this new social structure arose, conflicts occurred among some of the majority of the populations, in Turkmenistan, for example, the Soviet policy of collectivization shifted their production from cotton to food products. Prior to the enactment of the first Soviet five-year plan, the Soviet Union had been experiencing threats from external sources. The first war threat emerged from the East in 1924 and this war scare arose when Western nations, like Great Britain, began cutting off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. This created fear among the Soviets that the West was preparing to attack the Soviet Union again, during the Russian Civil War, foreign powers had occupied portions of Soviet territory. The fear of invasion from the west left the Soviets feeling a need for rapid industrialization to increase Soviet war making potential, at the same time as the war scare of 1927, dissatisfaction among the peasantry was emerging in the Soviet Union. This dissatisfaction arose from the famine of the early 1920s, as well as a growing mistreatment of the peasants, also during this time the secret police or the NKVD had begun rounding up political dissenters in the Soviet Union. The central aspect of the first Soviet five-year plan was the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union, the need for rapid industrialization was once again out of the fear of impending war from the West. If war were to break out between the Soviet Union and the West, the Soviets would be fighting against some of the most industrialized nations in the world, the rapid industrialization would inhibit fears of being left unprotected if War between the Soviets and the West were to occur. To meet the needs of a war, the Soviet leaders set unrealistic quotas for production. To meet those needs, the facilities had to be constructed to quickly facilitate material production before goods could be produced
44.
Far North (Russia)
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The Extreme North or Far North is a large part of Russia located mainly north of the Arctic Circle and boasting enormous mineral and natural resources. Its total area is about 5,500,000 square kilometres, due to the harsh conditions of the area, people who work there have traditionally been entitled by the Russian government to higher wages than workers of other regions. Murmansk, Yakutsk, Norilsk, Novy Urengoi, and Magadan are the largest cities within the Russian Far North proper, the larger and more southern Arkhangelsk is the largest among cities and territories equated to the Far North. The Far North is known for its harsh climate. People who work there, other indigenous populations involved in traditional occupations. Additional benefits include extra vacation, extra disability benefits, extra retirement benefits, such compensation had begun under the policy of the Soviet Union, and has been maintained by the Russian Federation. The regions were established based on climate, with harsher regions garnering greater compensation relative to milder regions. Russian Far East List of Russian explorers Small-numbered indigenous peoples of Extreme North Northern Sea Route
