Russia – Geography

The Russian Federation, at 17 million square kilometres, is almost twice the size of the continental United States, and by far the largest country in the world in terms of surface area. As a result, it cannot but help present a great variety in its physical geography. Broadly speaking, from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the ranges of Mongolia in the east the land is flat, the only exception being the Ural Mountains, which run roughly northwards from the northern border of Kazakhstan to the Arctic Ocean; although these mark the division between European and Asian Russia, and the beginning of the Siberian Plain, they do not form enough of a barrier to prevent the movement of peoples. As an important result for Russian history, the European territories had no protection against the mobile nomadic warriors which erupted in bands from the east, who were easily able to move quickly over the flatlands which were perfectly adapted to transport on horseback.

The flat land, from the Caspian to the Arctic Ocean, can be roughly divided into four strips. Starting in the south, the land is generally desert, interrupted only by the rivers which run towards the Caspian, Black Sea or the Aral. Above this is a band of grassland steppe, lightly watered with rivers and their smaller tributaries and streams, covered in scrub, bushes and light vegetation, perfect for the pasturing of livestock. Much of the land in this region possesses a rich black earth known in Russian as ‘chernozem’, highly fertile soil capable of providing rich returns in grain when properly tended and irrigated, but often difficult to exploit in times of low rainfall, or else in the absence of proper agricultural technology. Northwards beyond this is a band of forests, primarily coniferous but with deciduous regions along its southern edge; the soil here is called ‘podzol’, generally sandy and stony, more difficult to exploit for arable agriculture, and finally bordering the Arctic is a region of tundra and permafrost, crossed by sluggish rivers, often frozen, making their way north to fall into the Arctic Ocean.

The climate of the country is extremely diverse, with extremes of temperature possible in various regions of the country. The temperature in the Siberian landmass can sink as low as -60ºC in winter, whilst in the south the lower bands of the steppe can soar during the summer to near tropical levels. These conditions have an important effect on the distribution of population, with many of the far-northern and desert areas being nearly devoid of inhabitants. In general, it is important to note that although Russia’s population is estimated to be around 143 million (2006), the land itself is sparsely populated, with around only eight people per square kilometre; China, by contrast, on Russia’s southern border, has around 140 people per square kilometre. This statistic, along with Russia’s declining population as opposed to the rising population of China and its other competitors, should be borne in mind when considering the geo-political balance and future of Asia and the Far East.

Russian History – A Brief Overview

The earliest period: Prehistory – 9^th century AD

Little can be said with certainty about the early period of Russian history; written records and archaeological data are scarce. As far as can be told, the Russian steppeland was inhabited by various mounted nomadic groupings which began to appear around the second millennium BC, when man began to domesticate and breed the horse for human use. These nomads were likely to have been highly-mobile pastoralists, keeping sheep and livestock, and in military terms far more ferocious and capable than the settled populations in the area; it is likely that they in some measure asserted control over the sedentary farmers who lived in the fertile chernozem (black earth) regions on the edge of the steppe.

Notable amongst the early nomadic peoples in the region known to history are the Scythians. A group likely to have spoken an Indo-European language, they caused perpetual upset to the ancient near-eastern kingdoms of Mesopotamia and Persia (Iraq and Iran) by endless raids from the north, and later were able to turn back Alexander the Great (4^th century BC) from his marches into Central Asia and southern Russia with their notorious guerrilla tactics. They were particularly skilled at metalwork, and their gold burial jewellery, weapons and ornaments have been found in barrow burial mounds (kurgans) in the Kuban steppe north of the Crimea, and on sites along the River Dnieper.

After the general westward movement of peoples marked by the invasion of Europe by the nomadic chief Atilla the Hun in the mid 5^th century AD, a new tribal grouping, the Slavs, began to migrate eastwards from the Carpathian Mountains. One branch of this group, the Eastern Slavs, following the Rivers Dnieper and Volga, settled in Central and Eastern Europe; these peoples were to be the ancestors of the Great (or ordinary) Russians, as well as the Ukrainians (little Russians), and the Belorussians (White Russians).

Shortly after their settlement in these regions, the Slavs were conquered by another nomadic people not dissimilar to the Scythians, called the Khazars. The Khazars imposed only a light political control on the Slavs, extracting a regular tribute of goods such as honey, wax, furs, and slaves. The Slavs at that time are likely to have lived on subsistence farming, but their Khazar overlords were able to exploit their propitious position (the heart of their territory sat between the Caspian and the Black Sea, reaching up to the Volga and the River Don) to act as traders with Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphate, Central Asia and northern Europe. However, towards the end of the 9^th century AD, Khazar control in the Slav regions declined and the area fragmented into countless petty territories, making them vulnerable to external attack.

One of the most important lessons to draw from this brief summary of early Russian history is that the region was cut off from the Roman Empire, and many of the trends and events which went into the formation of Europe. It is to this early isolation that we may owe the initial appearance of many of the characteristics which make Russia distinct from much of the rest of Europe.

Kievan Russia: 9^th–12^th centuries

 As the Khazar Empire disintegrated, Varangian (or Viking) warlords began to encroach from the north and Scandinavia. In 862, the city of Novgorod on the River Volkhov was captured by one of the Varangian chiefs, Rurik. Twenty years later, his son Oleg, after raiding Byzantium, was able to capture Smolensk and Kiev, and make the latter his capital. The Varangians acted as a ruling class over the Eastern Slav peoples, and it is likely that the name ‘Rus’ was that assigned by them to their Scandinavian overlords.

Oleg and his successors became a formidable power in the region, making inroads into the neighbouring Bulgarian kingdom, and eventually overthrowing the Khazar Empire. In 907, after a raid against Byzantium (Constantinople, Istanbul), a trading relationship was established with the city; goods were shipped down the Dnieper and the Black sea towards it, and Russian soldiers enlisted for service with the forces of the Byzantine Empire. Although the relationship was not without friction, Russian links with the Byzantines were enhanced when the Russian ruler Vladimir converted to Orthodox Christianity in 989. According to one source, the Russian Chronicle, Vladimir sent envoys to investigate all the major monotheistic religions – Judaism, Islam, Roman Catholic and Orthodox (Byzantine) Christianity – and eventually chose the latter when he heard that the pomp and ceremony of the Mass at St Sophia in Constantinople was so impressive, that the envoys could not tell whether they were on heaven or in earth. The link to Byzantium, aside from doing much to add legitimacy the rule of Vladimir and his successors, set the pattern for Russia’s future in many respects: it continued in its general detachment from the Catholic West and Europe, looking instead eastwards to Asia; it also set the precedent for the close association of church and state, and is likely to have contributed to the traditional Russian concept of the exalted autocratic ruler – such was the example from Byzantium.

The 10^th and 11^th centuries were generally regarded as a golden age. Kiev itself was thought to be a highly developed city, with a great number of churches, markets and other fine buildings. Trade was carried on with Byzantium, Central Asia and the Islamic world, and in the city a skilled class of artisans arose with expertise particularly in the areas of leather-making, linen and textile manufacture; the surrounding countryside is thought to have populated by free farmers, not tied to the land like serfs. The Kingdom is thought to have been governed by the prince with the assistance of landed aristocrats (boyars), and the towns with the assistance of assemblies (veche) of the free adult males, rather like an ancient Greek city state; a code of law, the Pravda Russkaya, was also developed to regulate the dealings between people in the empire. Some scholars, however, have questioned this picture of early Russian life in Kiev, and have argued that the empire was more similar in nature and composition to the nomadic states which went before.

Whatever the exact nature of the Kievan State, it began to fracture in the 11^th century as its territories were divided between the sons of successive rulers. Weakened by internecine strife, it was unable to defend itself against the attacks of the adjacent nomadic tribes (Cumans, Pechengs), or new enemies in the north (the Lithuanians, Swedes, and the Teutonic Knights). As the marauders carried away slaves in their tens of thousands to sell in the Islamic Caliphate many of the Russians fled north, abandoning Kiev and the towns, settling down to a subsistence life on the lands, or hunting in the forests. An additional blow was the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, causing further damage to the trade of Kiev. In this condition, Kievan Rus was in no condition to repel the attacks of the new power of the East: the Mongols.

Mongol Domination: 12^th–15^th centuries

It was the great achievement of Genghis Khan in 1206 to unite the disparate groups of warring Mongol tribes beyond the Altai Mountains in the steppeland north of China. The unified Mongol tribes, who were warlike pastoral nomads not dissimilar to the earlier Scythians, posed a considerable menace to Central Asia and the West. By 1221 they had captured the Turkic regions of northern China, and within five years they had conducted a bloody campaign against the cities in the modern-day regions of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and western Iran, massacring millions of people and turning developed and irrigated agricultural land into grassland pasture for their animals, or else near desert.

Even after Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, the westward campaigns of the Mongols continued. In 1237, after the destruction of the Bulgarian kingdom on the Volga, Mongol armies under the generals Batu Khan and Subutai massed on the borders of southern Russia, and began their invasion by obliterating the small principality of Ryazan. The Russian empire by this time was hopelessly divided and the various petty princes were unable to band together to meet the aggressor. In the chaos, the Mongols were easily able to take the cities of Suzdal and Vladimir. Novgorod in the northwest was able to escape capture and occupation by the Mongol troops thanks to a stubborn resistance by the fortress of Torzhok. Nevertheless, by the summer of 1240 the capital city of Kiev was under siege, and fell on 6^th December of that year. The city was looted and the population slaughtered; the only building to be left standing was the Cathedral of St Sophia. It took the Mongol horsemen only three weeks after this to reach the western fringes of Russia, and from there a campaign was launched against Poland and Hungary; a garrison of 30,000 was left to control south and central Russia. Such was the fear that the Mongols inspired, that this small detachment of troops was sufficient to control this great extent of territory.

In 1242 the Golden Horde (the branch of the Mongols responsible for the control of Russia) established their own capital at Sarai (near modern Volgograd). From here, they established a loose control over the Russian principalities, not dissimilar to that of the Khazar Empire before them. Their greatest concern was for the collection of tribute, and the maintenance of the general peace. In general, this was a period of stagnation for Russia, with a decline in trade, craftsmanship, and learning. The isolation from the currents of Western thought and politics also continued, with only the mercantile cities of Novgorod and Pskov on the Baltic being spared this seclusion; although they paid tribute to the Mongols, they were distinct from the rest of Russia in developing trade with the Hanseatic cities of northern Europe, and evolving institutions of civic representative government, the constitutional limitation of the power of the prince, and the general rule of law. Throughout Russia, the Orthodox Church was permitted to continue in existence and to accumulate property; Christianity, which up to that time had most likely been superficial in Russian society, became much more deeply established amongst the people, as a marker of Russian identity against the foreign domination. And despite the general deterioration of Russian prosperity during this period, the time of Mongol control did have the effect of imposing unity on the disparate Russian principalities which beforehand had been quite unable to come together under any circumstances. It is ultimately a legacy of the Mongols that these principalities were later able to unite, and that Moscow was able to emerge as the capital city.

The Emergence of Muscovy Russia: 14^th century

The Golden Horde’s primary means of maintaining control over the subject territories of Russia was its power of appointing the princes who were to govern over those regions; each new prince had to journey to the capital of Sarai to seek Mongol approval for their selection, and they in their turn became responsible for the collection of tribute, and the maintenance of loyalty to the Mongol overlords. One of these subject princes, Ivan I Kalita (also known as Ivan Moneybags) was particularly zealous in these duties to the Golden Horde. He became ruler of Moscow in 1325, which was then no more than the small capital of a minor principality; the next year the nearby city of Tver rose up against the Mongol yoke, and appealed for help to Moscow in their rebellion. Declining to assist them, Ivan I in fact went further by brutally crushing the revolt. As a reward, the Mongols elevated him to the position of Grand Duke of Vladimir, and later added the further title ‘all of Russia’. He was vested with the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Golden Horde, as well as judicial authority over the rest of the Russian princes.

Moscow, despite its initial lack of significance, was geographically well located for further development. It straddled trade routes from northern Europe and the Baltic to the Caspian, and was connected by the River Oka, a tributary of the Volga, to a number of cities in the east and west, including Nizhny Novgorod. It grew in population considerably under Ivan I, being one of the most stable regions the whole of Russia, and increased in prestige and authority when the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church chose it as his permanent seat in 1327. Ivan’s successors were able by further realpolitik – exploiting the weakness of rival princes and continuing adherence to the Golden Horde – to increase the extent of their territorial possessions, and also by obsessive hoarding of money to build up a reserve of wealth that would allow them a position of primacy when the power of the Golden Horde eventually began to wane.

Many characteristics of the later Russian state can be traced to this time. The Principate of Muscovy adopted the system of primogeniture for the succession to the throne, thus giving it a much greater degree of stability than the surrounding Russian entities. It learnt from the Mongol overlords the principle of centralisation in administration, allowing them to hold a census of their subjects, impose regular taxation, and establish a system of conscription similar to that employed by the Mongol overlords. It also confirmed a number of totalitarian trends which were perhaps already present before the appearance of the Mongols – the principle of autocracy and absolutism on the part of the ruler, heavy government control over the everyday lives of the people, the belief that the group and the state was more important than the lives of the individual, and ruthless action to suppress dissent.

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