World Country Guide

The Urals, Siberia & the Far East

The birthplace of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin. The city is also historically important as the last resting place of the Romanov royal family, murdered during the Bolshevik revolution.
Covering an area of over 12,800,000 sq km (4,000,000 sq miles), Siberia contains unimaginably vast stretches of marshy forest (taiga). This ‘sleeping land’, the literal translation of its name, possesses a million lakes, 53,000 rivers and an enormous wealth of natural resources. Although the temperature in winter falls well below freezing point, the weather in summer can be very warm. Tourism is less developed than elsewhere in the Russian Federation and some parts are still not accessible. However, much of the region has been opened up, including Sakhalin Island and the Chukchi Peninsula just across the Bering Strait from Alaska. The taiga is within easy reach of many of the region’s cities. Air-hopping is one way of discovering the wilderness. A famous alternative is the Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest continuous railway in the world, a journey which is one of the greatest travel adventures. The line cuts through an area bigger than Western Europe, crossing a landscape which includes arctic wastes, tundra and steppe. The most scenic part of the journey is between Irkutsk and Khabarovsk.
Irkutsk is over 300 years old and owes much of its development to its location on the tradeways to Mongolia and China. At the end of the last century, the city began to take on the aspect of a ‘boom town’ when trade in gold, fur and diamonds suddenly created new wealth. It was to Irkutsk that many 19th-century revolutionaries, such as the Decembrists, were exiled. The University of Irkutsk was the first establishment of higher education in eastern Siberia. Today, as in former times, this important Siberian city is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of fur. The town lies on the banks of the Angara, the only outflowing river from Lake Baikal.
The lake is accessible from Irkutsk by hydrofoil during the summer. Statistics about Baikal are astounding; with a depth of 1637m (5371ft) it is the world’s deepest lake. Its surface area equals that of Belgium and The Netherlands put together. It is 25 million years old, and it would take three months to walk around its 2000km (1243 mile) shoreline. The purity of its water is maintained by millions of tiny crayfish, providing a habitat for a wide variety of fish, including sturgeon, loach, grayling and omul (a type of salmon), one of many species unique to Baikal. Its shores are a feeding ground for wildfowl and the occasional bear. Freshwater seal colonies are found around the Ushkan Islands in the centre of the lake. Olkhon Island is the site of primitive rock drawings and a unique necropolis of an ancient Siberian tribe whose members are thought to have been ancestors of indigenous North Americans. The local climate is often harsh; the surface of the entire lake often freezes over in winter (trains were moved across the ice during the Russo-Japanese war). The sarma wind can sink boats and rip the roofs off buildings. While the human race now dominates the lake, it remains to be seen whether it will be a responsible custodian of the region’s flora and fauna.
Many of the inhabitants of the Buryat Republic are Buddhists. Dozens of picturesque temples (datsans) sprang up round Lake Baikal after Empress Elizabeth, Peter the Great’s daughter, recognised the Buddhist religion in the Russian Federation. Although most datsans were destroyed during the 1930s, many of their treasures were preserved in the Russian Orthodox church in Ulaan Ude, the capital. The Sandalwood Buddha, on display in the town’s Exhibition Hall, is said to have been made with the Buddha himself sitting as a model.
Founded as a garrison town, Yakutsk is capital of the vast Sakha (Yakutia) Autonomous Republic. Today it is a major scientific centre for permafrost research. The republic’s landscapes range from Alpine meadows to moss-covered tundra, with sandy deserts close to the Arctic zone. This is pioneer country, complete with gold-mining settlements.
The largest industrial centre of eastern Siberia and an important transport junction is located on the Amur. The town (founded in 1858) was named after the scientist Khabarov. The red brick houses in the centre have curious roofs shaped like pine needles, and are intermingled with the constructivist architecture of the 1930s. Worth a visit is the regional museum, which offers an insight into the different cultures of the Amur people.
A military and naval port, Vladivostok was opened to foreign visitors in 1990. As a gateway to the Pacific and the East, the town has enormous commercial potential. It is within easy reach of the Ussuriysk taiga, a unique habitat for plants of the pre-glacial period, as well as tigers, leopard, bison, boar and bears.