1st elected president

strong president

Boris Yeltsin

Vladimir Putin

not part of Europe or Russia (doesn't fit realm criteria)

transition zone?

between Black/Caspian Sea

Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan

resisting Moscow's rule

T or F?

The Yeltsin administration negotiated with minority-based "republics" and kept them with Russia.

Tchaikovsky

commemorated Russian victories over foes

capital = St. Petersburg

renamed Leningrad

Moscow was captial for Soviet Union

"Soviet Socialist Republic"

each of the 15 political entities in the Soviet Union

T or F?

The Soviet Empire was the legacy of czarist expansionism

harsh climatic conditions

great distances

continental

Humid cold climate w/ cool summer of short, cool summer

T or F?

Soviet Union leaders wanted to reduce agric. imports, so they created a major irrigation project in colonies of Central Asia.

• core area
• continuation of the North European Lowland
• bordered one east by Ural Mtns

• seperates two plains
• minerals fossil fuels
• does have passes
• souther end densely populated

• world's largest unbroken lowland
• contains permafrost in north
• central zone is marshy
• south has major cities on the Trans-Siberian Railroad

• East of Siberian Plain
• like Siberian Plain
• Sparsely populated

• mountainous
• east of Siberia

• East of Yakutsk Basin
• ranges, ridges, valleys, volcanic mountains
• Lake Baykal (deepest rift lake ing the world)
• contains Kamchatka Peninsula with volcanic Mt. Klyuchevskaya

Russia's most inhospitable zone

there is lumbering, a fur trade, and gold/diamond minding

• southern Russia
• glaciers that melt and send alluvium-laden water downstream to farms; enriches farms

• extension of Europe's Alpine Mtns
• southern border sharply defined by topography

• made Kiev the capital
• established Novgorod on Lake Ilmen (in the north)
  • Rus -- a state
  • imiportant trading centers betwwen German-speaking ports and Mediteranean

• invaded Ukraine
• the two Russes collapsed
• citizens fled to forests and set up new "Russes"
  • including Moscow
    • ruler called Grand Duke
• princes paid tribute to the Mongols

basin of Volga R.

major center of Islam (Tatar's religion)

became a major military power during Ivan the Terrible's rule (16th century)

rulers called themselves czars

claimed to be he heirs of the Byzantine emperors

seminomadic people who lived in present-day Ukraine

leaders of eastern expansion, mainly through fur trade

constructed ostrogs (waystations) along rivers

• 17-18th century
• wanted to create modern, European Russia
• built St. Petersburg as a forward capital (on doorstep of Swedish-held Finland)
  • became Russia's leading port
• incorporated Estonia in 1721

• 18th century
• Black Sea area (Crimea Peninsula, Odesa) gained
• penetrated Caucasus (tried to get to Indian Ocean, but stopped at Britian-controlled Persia)
• 1st American settlement by Russians (on Kodiak Island)
• MADE RUSSIA A COLONIAL POWER

• took over Polish land (including the capital Warsaw)
• took Finland from the Swedes in 1809
• PREOCCUPIED WITH CENTRAL ASIA --> between Caspian Sea and western China
  • Islamic area, gained Muslim subjects
  • port of Vladivostok founded in 1860 on the Pacific Ocean

• wanted to build trans-siverian railroad in 1892
• had to cross Manchuria (territory of China); China refused
• Russia invaded so that it could build the railroad
• Japanese confronted Russia (Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905)
• Japan took possesion of land

T or F?

The communist empire was the product of Moscow and the socialist revolution, not of the legacy of St. Petersburg and European Russia (during Czar times)

T or F?

Russia is unified by a dominant culture.

Bolsheviks

Mensheviks

"Majority"

followed Lenin

"Minority"

saw more liberal future for Russia

1918

away from Petrograd (St. Petersburg)

republics within republics

regions for smaller minorities

T or F?

The Soviet Union was only a federation in theory.

1. to accelerate industrialization
2. to collectivize agriculture

David Remnick

30-60 million people lost their lives because of Soviet lust to keep power and control

manufacturers told where to locate (even if not where raw materials are)

absence of competition

Russian Federation Treaty

1992

a commitement between Russia's internal republics

said that they would cooperate with the new federal system

Chechnya didn't sign

Moscow

St. Petersburg

recognized to accomodate substantial ethnic minorities in the population

they lie in several clusters

one of the most defiant Regions

why?

Primorskiy, Region of Vladivostok

because of distance decay

created 7 administrative units to increase Moscow's authority over them

•  
  • Central
  • Northwest
  • Volga
  • North Caucasus
  • Ural
  • Siberian
  • Far Eastern

social disorders -- alcoholism, suicide, etc.

General population: drug abuse, heavy smoking, bad diets

Halford Mackinder

west russia and east europe had natural protection/resource wealth = propelled to world power

[HEARTLAND THEORY]

first scholar to use term "rimland"

calculated that Eurasia's periphery (not core) held the key to global power

thought Japan's power was the beginning of that process

• ethnic ties
• revival of Christian churches (there was communist atheism)
• sprouting of Russian democracy
• budding market economy
• dependence of Europe on Russian energy supplies

1. negotiations with Iran about nuclear weapons
2. U.S. intervention in Iraq

eastern Asia

land taken by China a century ago

Chinese immigrating to eastern Russia

• "Moscow Region"
  • Moscow is the focus of a region containing 1/3 of Russian population

• under the czars, focus of Russian political/cultural life
• industrialization for Russia (10% of country's manufacturing)

• Arctic Circle
• Kola Peninsula
• naval base
• remoteness sheilded it from German occupation
• fishing port
• container facility for cargo ships
• has ice-free seasons because of warm N. Atlantic Drift Ocean Current

• Ivan the Terrible wanted to make it the key port on route to maritime Europe
• port for lumber shipments

• region in Russian Core
• extends along mid/lower Volga R. valley
  • "Volga Region"
• history: transport food/raw materials
• Changed:
  • Developed because far from Germans in WWII
  • Volga-Urals region large source of petroleum and natural gas
  • Transport system expanded
    • Volga-Don Canal -- connects river to Black Sea
    • Moscow Canal
    • Mariinsk canals -- link to Baltic Sea

in Tolyatti (The Volga Region)

one of the world's largest of its kind

• Moscow tries to stabilize its minority "republics"
• source for oil; important because of that

• capital of Chechnya
• was a major oil-industry center and service hub during the Soviet era

• big muslim population
• accused of helping Nazi's; pop. exiled to Cen. Asia, resulting in deaths
• tried to get independence in 1991
• violent attaches between Moscow/Chechnya

• In Internal Southern Periphery
• half of pop. = buddhist
• invited Dalai Lama in 2004

• Internal Southern Periphery
• many ethnicities

• Internal Southern Periphery
• of part of Chechnyan republic
• Muslim majority

• Internal Southern Periphery
• no significant Muslim element
• Cherkess

• Black Sea coast
• Sakartvelos
• capital = Tbilisi
• Josef Stalin was Georgian
• diversified economy

• External Southern Periphery

• landlocked

• rugged

• Christian

• war with Azerbaijan about Armenians in seperated territory (exclave) called Nagorno-Karabakh

 a seperated territory

• External Southern Periphery
• borders Caspian Sea
• name of independent state and a province in neighboring Iran
  • Turkish people divided by Russian and Persian empires
• Azeris = shi'ite muslims
• oil/natural gas --> under the Soviets one of Moscow's main sources of fuel
  • center of industry = Baki, capital

• U.S. gov's preference
• Azberjaini pipeline through Georgia, across Turkey to Mediterranean terminal at Ceyhan
• 2005

• NOT an obstacle to eat-west transportation
• metallic mineral resources = industrial development
• strong bond with Central Industrial and Volga Regions in the Russian Core
• SOME geographers say-- it seperates "European" Russia from "Asian" Russia

• The Eastern Frontier
• heavy manugacturing
• supplied raw materials during beginning of Soviet times
• leading city = Novoskibirsk -- symbol of Russian enterprise in eastern interior

• Kuznetsk Basin
• one of oldest Russian towns in Siberia (17th century)

• Kuznetsk Basin
• steel-production from Ural's bauxite

• The Eastern Frontier
• dams/hydroelectric power (particularly Bratsk)

• The Lake Baykal Area
• main service center for the Siberian Region in north and the southeastern Russia area

neighboring land taken from China by the czars

part of the Eastern Frontier

• contains riches
• oil/natural gas -- contributes significantly to Russia's oil supply
• hydroelectric power
• Sakha (the Yakut Republic) in the east markes political geography

• Baykal-Amur Mainline railroad
• 1980s
• p;arallel to Trans-Siberian Railroad
• key to eastern frontier's infrastructure that will help economic growth

• Two parts:
  • mainland area
  • the large island of Sakhalin
• offshore = productive fishing grounds
• oil/gas reserves
• Soviet leaders created incentives to move here
  • had communist-era advantages; no more
• headquarters = Kharbarovsk

• Russian Far East
• "We Own the East"
• military base
• closed to foreigners
• Moscow invested in its infrastructure

a tributary of the Amur

in Russian Far East

• Russian Far East
• originally the Jewish Autonomous Region

describe the soviet flag...

who was the last ruler of the Soviet Union?

hammer-and-sickle

Mikhail Gorbachev

Alaska was called...

but...

Seward's Folly

Seward's Icebox

(Seward was the U.S. Secretary of State in 1867)

gold/oil was discovered

a set of rooms in the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg

exemplifies 18th century Russian Baroque at its height

Venice of the North

Peter's "window on Europe"

Peter and Paul Fortress

Winter Palace

Hermitage Museum

Other names: Petrograd (during Russian Revolution), Leningrad