the vogla don and ural rivers follow though whitch country

In fact, although they are quite rare in the watershed, in areas with higher humidity (river valleys, topographical depressions, ravines) a number of species can be found, including oak, linden, maple, ash, elm, poplar, alder, fir, and birch. 8 However, the steppe is not completely devoid of trees. These are an excellent source of feed for animals. The predominant soil types are black and chestnut soils, on which under natural conditions various types of grasses usually grow, in particular, ‘ostrich grasses’ ( Stipa). However, major rivers largely satisfy the ecosystem’s need for water, especially in the western part of the steppe. 6Īverage precipitation in the steppe ranges from 250 to 500 mm, which, due to a relatively high degree of evaporation, results in a humidity deficit. It should be noted, however, that summer is much longer in the European part of the zone. 5 In July, the average temperature of the steppe zone remains in a range from 19 to 24☌. From October to March the average temperatures are always negative. In the coldest parts of Mongolia, the average temperature in January, as measured in Ulan Bator, is -27☌. 4 The eastern part of the steppe is markedly colder. The average January temperature varies between -12° and -23☌. It has a continental climate with cold winters and quite long and hot summers. 3 The steppe zone, despite the fact that it stretches over such a large area, is characterized by its relative homogeneity. Both transitional belts combine the natural conditions of the zones they separate. In the west, this semi-arid belt extended from the Caspian Plain and to the plains of Xinjiang and Gansu, reaching southern and north-western Mongolia. 2 To the south, it was bordered by a belt of semi-arid steppe with short, dry grass or semi-desert features. The steppe ran from the Hungarian Plain in the west through the northern regions of today’s Ukraine and Kazakhstan to the southern ends of the Western Siberian Highlands and Mongolia. Its northern boundary was a humid forest steppe zone that separated it from a long, continuous belt of deciduous and mixed forests farther north. These authors immortalized the landscape of steppelands that today no longer exist.Ī vast steppe once stretched across the interior of the Eurasian continent, from the northern shores of the Black Sea to Manchuria. It is also necessary to recall descriptions of the Black Sea-Caspian steppe written over 23 centuries (from the 5th century BCE to the late 18th century CE). It is therefore necessary to provide here a general characterization of the natural environment typical of nomads and how it determines the culture specific to these communities and the lifestyle associated with it. However, here too, mainly in western Kazakhstan and southern Siberia, there were intensive efforts in the 1950s to develop ‘virgin lands’ into cultivated fields, which fundamentally changed the region’s natural landscape. The Asian part of the zone has been less affected by anthropogenic change. With the exception of small areas that have been turned into nature reserves (e.g., the Askania-Nova biosphere reserve in Ukraine), the biogeography of the European steppe and forest steppe zones is therefore more cultural than natural in character. The natural forests in the forest-steppe zone have been almost completely eliminated. It is estimated that more than 60 percent of the steppe area in Europe has been converted into arable land. This region’s steppe and forest steppe zones have been subjected to the most far-reaching anthropogenic change of all the biomes in Northern Eurasia. Today, the term ‘steppe’ applies to the lands north of the Black and Caspian Seas more in historical terms than in relation to their physical geography. From at least the beginning of the first millennium BCE, up until the late eighteenth century, when the western extremes of the Great Steppe came under the political domination of the Russian Empire, this region was the shared home of often quite diverse nomadic communities. Their existence was closely linked to a unique geographical environment, and it was changes to this environment caused by anthropogenic factors that resulted in the disappearance of nomadic communities in Europe in the early 19th century. Yet in this respect the case of nomads of the steppes of Northern Eurasia is a special one. This does not mean, however, that I promote the notion of geographical determinism or assume that the history of a particular community is a priori determined by the natural conditions of the area(s) where it resides. Geographical factors have been determinants in the development of all human societies – both those in the past and those of today – and steppe-dwellers are certainly no exception. I shall begin with a description of the natural conditions of the Black Sea- Caspian steppe for reasons other than merely fulfilling expectations about what a typical academic monograph should contain.

The vogla don and ural rivers follow though whitch country