Russia II  I must miss today’s office hour  Map test: Europe and Russian Federation only: 20 questions  Review  Russia –Physiographic regions –Political geography of a federation –North Caucasus and Chechnya

What is the name of this political unit?

What are the names of all these political units?

Russia’s physiographic regions

RUSSIAN PLAIN

Ural Mountains Traditional eastern boundary of Europe Novaya Zemlya North-south length covers 2500 kms Central Urals are lowest: several key crossing places Forest and mineral resources were basis for Soviet industrialization and war machine

WEST SIBERIAN PLAIN The world’s largest unbroken lowland Ob and Irtysh river basin (south-north flow) Permafrost Major cities: Omsk Novosibirsk

EASTERN HIGHLANDS Amur River at Kahabarovsk Vladivostok

Caucasus Mountains

Political Framework  Soviet legacy –Revolution (1917) –Bolsheviks versus Mensheviks –Lenin “right to self determination” –Ethnic nationalism, multinational state –Capital: Petrograd to Moscow (1918)  Federation –USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) –SSRs  ASSRs, Autonomous Regions  Russification by forced migration: deportation to periphery: Siberia

FORMER SOVIET UNION

Command Economy  State ownership, control and coordination of ‘Means of production’  Central planning –State and collective farms –5 year plans  Soviet economic principles –Regional self-sufficiency –Interdependent republics (SSRs and internal) –Industrialize remote and rural regions –West-east depth for defence –COMECON and Warsaw Pact

 Eastern European dictators deposed  Collapse in agricultural & industrial production –Economic output down by 4% in 1990 & 10-15% in first half of 1991  Intensification of ethno-cultural nationalism & separatism –Unity of the Soviet Union (macro) & unity of republics (micro) threatened  Pluralization of Soviet politics & erosion of communist party monopoly What Happened to the Soviet Union?

 Mikail Gorbachev –Perestroika and glasnost (restructuring and openness)  E.g. attempts to restructure USSR federal structure –Attempted coup in August 1991, embarassment –Resignation of President Gorbachev December 1991  Commonwealth of Independent States –emergence of CIS to replace the Soviet Union – CIS Collapse Of The Soviet Union

Russian Federation –21 REPUBLICS (internal, ethnic) –11 AUTONOMOUS REGIONS (OKRUGS) –49 PROVINCES (OBLASTS) –6 TERRITORIES (KRAYS) (sparse) –2 AUTONOMOUS FEDERAL CITIES  Moscow  St Petersburg Autonomy

It is a federation!

Russia’s new administrative divisions

RUSSIAN ETHNICITY

North Caucasus  Distance decay and periphery of Russian empire  Putin’s centralism  3 Muslim republics: Islamist movement  Strategic resources: –Oil wells –Pipelines  Russification, Stalin’s deportations, guerilla warfare