32 



RUSSIA 



Seaboard, Itlandt. Until the end of the 17th 

 century Russia's seaboard was limited to the Arctic 

 < i.--iin, and she had to wage a long series of ware 

 before -he secured a linn footing on the Baltic and 

 the Black Sea. The latter, however, still remains 

 an inland sea, the entrance to which is 'in the 

 hands of a foreign power. The Arctic Ocean, which 

 offers excellent tUning grounds in its western part, 

 makes a deep indentation on the north coast of 

 Knssia viz. the White Sea (q.v.); but its gulfs, 

 Kandalaksha, Onega, and Dwina, are ice-bound 

 lor nine months every year. The only port of any 

 moment, Archangel, has now lost its former im- 

 iHirtance. Farther east, Tchesskaya and Petchora 

 1>,iy are surrounded by frozen deserts. The 

 Kara Sea, between the crcscent-shaiied island 

 of Novaya Zemlya (Nova Xembla) ana the coast 

 of Siberia, is navigable for a few weeks only every 

 year (see SIBERIA). The islands of Kolguetf, Vai- 

 gatch, Novaya Zemlya, and tl' islands of Sil>eria 

 New Siberia, Mcdvyc/hii. and others are un- 

 inhabited. As to the Behring Sea and the Sea 

 of Okhotsk, which contain good fishing and hunt- 

 ing grounds, their roasts are most inhospitable. 

 The same is true of that part of the Japanese Sea 

 which l>elongs to Russia. Its only great gulf, 

 Peter the Great's, has in Vladivostok one of the 

 finest roadsteads in the world ; but this gulf is 

 separated from the interior by wide tract- of unin- 

 hanited marshes and forests. The Baltic Sea. with 

 theGulfxof Bothnia, Finland, and Riga, is the chief 

 ea of Russia ; but it nowhere touches purely 

 Russian territory, its coasts being peopled by Finns, 

 Lett*, KxtlioniaiiM. and Germans. Nevertheless, 

 four out of the five chief port* of Russia St 

 Petersburg, Reval, Lilian, and Kiga are situate*! 

 on the Baltic Sea. Three of them are frozen for 

 from four to five months every year ; and Libau 



is the only one which has its roadsteads o]x>n 

 nearly all the vear round. The chief islands of 

 the Baltic are the Aland archipelago, l>elonging to 

 Finland; Dago, Oesel, Mohn, ana Worms at the 

 entrance of the Gulf of Kiga; Hochland and 

 Kotlin (with the fortress of Cronstadt) in the 

 Gulf of Finland. 



The Black Sea acquires more and more im- 

 portance every year. The fertile stcp|H?s of its 

 littoral are being rapidly settled, and t lit- centre of 

 gravity of Russia's population is gradually shift 

 ing south. The Black Sea suffers, however, from 

 a lack of good ports. Its great gulf, the Sea 

 of Azov (ports Taganrog and Rostotl'), is very 

 shallow ; the fine ports of the Crimea are too 

 remote from the mainland ; and the seaboard 

 of Northern Caucasia is separated from the in- 

 terior by a high chain of mountains. Odessa 

 is the chief port of this sea ; and it has no 

 rival in Russia except St Petersburg. Nikolaieff 

 is the |>rini'i|>a! naval arsenal ; an<t Seba-topol 

 remains a naval station. Batoum, tin- chief port 

 of Transcaucasia, is of great importance for the 

 export of petroleum. The Caspian Sea, which 

 receives the chief river of Euro|>ean Russia the 

 Volga is an excellent medium of communication 

 between the central Asian dominions of the empire 

 and the Caucasus, as also for trade with Persia 

 (to which the south coast belongs); hut it has no 

 outlet to the ocean, nor is there any probability of 

 connecting it advantageously by canal with the 

 Black Sea, because its level is tO feet Mow the 

 level of the ocean. The fisheries in the Caspian 

 supply Russia with considerable quantities of lish. 



Colonies. Russia has no colonies properly so 

 called. Its possessions in Asia are mere reserve- 

 grounds for surplus population. Russian immi- 

 grants are already the- prevailing element in the 

 population of Siberia and Northern Caucasia, num- 

 bering about 4,500,000 against less than 700,000 

 natives in Siberia, and about 2,000,000 in Caucasia. 



Orography. The geographical features of Kin- 

 land, Poland, Caucasus, Siberia, and Turkestan 

 being dealt Witt under those respective headings, the 

 following remarks relate only to European Russia. 

 The leading feature in its physical structure is 

 a broad, flat swelling aliout <00 miles wide, with 

 an average height of S(K) feet, which crosses it 

 from south-west to north-east and connects the 

 elevated plains of middle Kuropewith the I'rals. 

 A belt of lowlands M retching Irom Kast Prussia 

 to the White Sea fringes this central plateau on 

 the north-west, separating it from the hilly tracts 

 of Finland : while the plains of llessarahia. Kherson, 

 tin 1 Sea of Azov, ami the lower Volga limit it on 

 the south-east. The highest parts of the central 

 plateau, hardly attaining 1000 to 1100 feet above 

 the sea, lie along its north-western iMirder- \i/. 

 the Kiclce mountains of Poland, the plateaus of 

 Grodno and Minsk, the Valdai Hills, and the hilly 

 tracts of the Sukhona and Vytchcgda (nmier 

 Dwina). In middle Russia the same altitude is 

 attained by the Hat rmincnccs ,,f the plateau about 

 Kursk, in the hills on the right bank of the Volga, 

 and in the spurs of the Carpathians. In all these 

 places the country assumes a hilly aspect on account 

 of the deep ravines which intersect it. The central 

 plateau is, however,diversilicil by three depressions. 

 One of these stretches south-east to north-west up 

 the broad valley of the Dneiper and thence to the 

 Vistula; another follows the Don and joins the 

 valley of the Oka; and the third extends from the 

 north shoieof the Caspian along the left bank of 

 the Volga to the l>einl it makes at Samara. During 

 the Postglacial |x-riod an elongated gulf of the 

 Caspian Sea extended in that direction up the 

 valleys of the Volga and the Kama as far as 55 N. 

 lat. A fourth depression, about Nijni-Novgorod. 



