Dynamic Russia

Russia is a much more complex and diverse country than many people realize, with dozens of individual ethnic groups including Muslims and even Buddhists with their own autonomous republics. Google names like the Chukchi, Nenets, Yakut, and Tatar peoples to see how and where some of the ethnic groups live.
Kul Sharif Mosque in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia

Economic issues - "almost like 83 countries all put together."
Russia's economy is now is in the midst of tight sanctions that the US and EU are now squeezing and we may be seeing a domestic meltdown there in the not so near future. Putin's antics abroad are in part a diversion from the economic difficulties they have at home, but they can't run on diversions forever.

Russia runs largely on natural resources and needs to develop more higher-level manufacturing and services industries. The high rate of government corruption, however, makes this development slow in coming. Russia suffers from "brain drain," smart, educated people who leave to pursue research and opportunities in other countries.Russia has a great deal of disunity, as the video below mentions it is "83 regions, almost like 83 countries all put together," with lots of regional dissent, very difficult to manage.

Video: Russia's perfect economic storm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcCVKgMi0

Population issues
The large population decline in Russia over the last century was in part due to the deaths during the famines and murders of the Communist era and then later in the 1960s and 1970s the fertility rate became very low as Russia became the world leader in abortions. For many of those years Russia averaged three abortions per woman in a lifetime--hard to believe but true. The communist government encouraged abortion as a means of birth control. Even today after abortion rates have declined sharply, if you can believe it, Russia has more abortions than live babies born and still leads the world in abortions.

On the map below, Russia's Siberian regions are growing while the core, which includes Moscow and St. Petersburg, are shrinking fast.




Siberia
Siberia is extremely cold in winters. Russia is the only country in the world that has created many major settlements of 1 million plus in regions that are subzero for large portions of the year. Cities like Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk average close to zero 3 months out of the year, and the coldest of all, Yakutsk, the coldest major city in the world, has a January average temperature of -43F.

Here's a short clip of life in Yakustk on a day at -46--I like the fish market, no refrigeration necessary

Life in Yakustk on a day at -46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVHofQB1xCw

There is talk that with global warming Siberia could become slightly easier to access, but it remains to be seen how much of a change it will bring.

Three Siberian rivers, all huge
Russia's three great Siberian rivers (see chapter maps) the Ob, Yenisey, and Lena are some of the longest rivers in the world that most people have never heard. This remote and cold, deep in Siberia, running north into the Arctic Ocean, which could be open for longer periods for shipping with global warming, see the earlier Announcement and map posted.

Take a look at this photo series

Life on the Yenisey River
http://photo.sf.co.ua/id246


Russia's Far East: great long term potential
Russia's Far East simply has a huge amount of empty space plus a great coastal location on the Pacific Rim near China, Japan, and Korea. It has huge potential for settlements and industries, which the central government has never developed, in part because it is distance from Moscow. It is actually farther from Moscow to Vladivostok, Russia than it is from Washington, DC to Moscow.

Here are some economists who are excited about the potential for Russia's Far East:

Tapping the potential for Russia's Far East
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7EZy75BVvg



Logging on the Yenisey River in Siberia