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100-706: The Ob ( / ˈ ɒ b / ) is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia , and with its tributary the Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system , at 5,410 kilometres (3,360 mi). The Ob forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins in the Altai Mountains . It is the westernmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the other two being

200-531: A Samoyed derivation has been proposed, its precise origins remain unclear. Today, the word survives only in Sayan Turkic languages : in Tuvan as xem хем, meaning "river", and in its sister language, Tofa , as hem hем, also meaning "river". These languages are considered to have had close contact with those mentioned above in ancient times. Additionally, there are just over 50 river names containing

300-520: A glacier on Mount Byelukha . The Ob itself is in Russia. Its tributaries extend into northern Kazakhstan , a western corner of China and a tiny upland parcel of the western tip of Mongolia, where the wider borders match the drainage basin almost precisely. The river splits into more than one arm after the large Irtysh flows into it at about 69° E. Originating in China, the Irtysh is the furthest source of

400-885: A northerly course through Lake Baikal and the Krasnoyarsk Dam before draining into the Yenisey Gulf in the Kara Sea . The Yenisey divides the Western Siberian Plain in the west from the Central Siberian Plateau to the east; it drains a large part of central Siberia . Its delta is formed between the Gyda Peninsula and the Taymyr Peninsula . It is the central one of three large Siberian rivers that flow into

500-460: A part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states since the centuries-long conquest of Siberia , which began with the fall of the Khanate of Sibir in the late 16th century and concluded with the annexation of Chukotka in 1778. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), but home to roughly

600-671: A particularly important western river-port was Tyumen , located on the Tura , a tributary of the Tobol . Reached by an extension of the Yekaterinburg – Perm railway in 1885, and thus obtaining a rail link to the Kama and Volga rivers in the heart of Russia, Tyumen became an important railhead for some years until the railway extended further east. In the eastern reaches of the Ob basin, Tomsk on

700-587: A quarter of Russia's population. Novosibirsk , Krasnoyarsk , and Omsk are the largest cities in the area. Because Siberia is a geographic and historic concept and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Traditionally, Siberia spans the entire expanse of land from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean , with the Ural River usually forming

800-707: A region extending eastward from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between Pacific and Arctic drainage basins, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and the national borders of both Mongolia and China. By this definition, Siberia includes the federal subjects of the Siberian Federal District , and some of the Ural Federal District , as well as Sakha (Yakutia) Republic , which

900-513: Is 5,075 km (3,153 mi) long. It has a drainage basin of 2,580,000 km (1,000,000 sq mi). The Yenisey flows through the Russian federal subjects Tuva , Khakassia and Krasnoyarsk Krai . The city of Krasnoyarsk is situated far upstream on the Yenisey, and the industrial city of Norilsk is nearby on the Arctic Ocean's Taymyr Peninsula . The largest tributaries of

1000-497: Is a compound word of unconfirmed Old Kyrgyz (or inspired by Tuvan language?) ene (эне), meaning "great-grandmother; nanny" + say (сай), meaning "gravel; ford". However, the above considerations, except Vasmer's, remain speculative false etymologies , as they do not refer to the dictionaries of the respective languages. Researchers are encouraged to conduct more detailed studies based on proper contemporary linguistic sources and historical documents . Studies have shown that

1100-505: Is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District . Geographically, this definition includes subdivisions of several other subjects of Urals and Far Eastern federal districts, but they are not included administratively. This definition excludes Sverdlovsk Oblast and Chelyabinsk Oblast , both of which are included in some wider definitions of Siberia. Other sources may use either a somewhat wider definition that states

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1200-424: Is about 0.5 °C (32.9 °F). January averages about −20 °C (−4 °F) and July about +19 °C (66 °F), while daytime temperatures in summer typically exceed 20 °C (68 °F). With a reliable growing season, an abundance of sunshine and exceedingly fertile chernozem soils, southern Siberia is good enough for profitable agriculture , as was demonstrated in the early 20th century. By far

1300-579: Is culturally and politically considered European, since it is a part of Russia. Major geographical zones within Siberia include the West Siberian Plain and the Central Siberian Plateau . Eastern and central Sakha comprises numerous north–south mountain ranges of various ages. These mountains extend up to almost 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), but above a few hundred metres they are almost completely devoid of vegetation. The Verkhoyansk Range

1400-530: Is doubtful that the total early modern Siberian population exceeded 300,000 persons". The first mention of Siberia in chronicles is recorded in the year 1032. The city-state of Novgorod established two trade routes to the Ob River , and laid claim to the lands the Russians called Yugra . The Russians were attracted by its furs in particular. Novgorod launched military campaigns to extract tribute from

1500-568: Is found in the 14th-century History of Yuan , vol. 63. These contacts were made by the Chinese as they approached the upper Yenisei River from the south. The characters jian "劔" (or jian "劍") and qian "謙" have been compared to Käm in Orkhon inscriptions from the 8th century. The term Kem كيم is also found in the 13th‒14th-century Oirat Biography in Jami' al-Tawarikh . Furthermore, even in

1600-425: Is high also in most of Primorye in the extreme south, where monsoonal influences can produce quite heavy summer rainfall. Researchers, including Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University and Judith Marquand at Oxford University , warn that Western Siberia has begun to thaw as a result of global warming . The frozen peat bogs in this region may hold billions of tons of methane gas , which may be released into

1700-667: Is no longer visible. The Central Siberian Plateau is an ancient craton (sometimes named Angaraland ) that formed an independent continent before the Permian (see the Siberian continent ). It is exceptionally rich in minerals, containing large deposits of gold , diamonds , and ores of manganese , lead , zinc , nickel , cobalt , and molybdenum . Much of the area includes the Siberian Traps —a large igneous province . A massive eruptive period approximately coincided with

1800-603: Is several degrees warmer than in the East ( Irkutsk , or Chita ) where in the north an extreme winter subarctic climate (Köppen Dfd , Dwd , or Dsd ) prevails. But summer temperatures in other regions can reach +38 °C (100 °F). In general, Sakha is the coldest Siberian region, and the basin of the Yana has the lowest temperatures of all, with permafrost reaching 1,493 metres (4,898 ft). Nevertheless, Imperial Russian plans of settlement never viewed cold as an impediment. In

1900-473: Is the active volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka , on the Kamchatka Peninsula . Its peak reaches 4,750 metres (15,580 ft). The West Siberian Plain, consisting mostly of Cenozoic alluvial deposits, is somewhat flat. In the mid-Pleistocene, many deposits on this plain resulted from ice dams which produced a large glacial lake . This mid- to late- Pleistocene lake blocked the northward flow of

2000-626: Is the city of Novosibirsk . Present-day Novosibirsk is an important business, science, manufacturing and cultural center of the Asian part of Russia. Omsk played an important role in the Russian Civil War serving as a provisional Russian capital, as well in the expansion into and governing of Central Asia . In addition to its cultural status, it has become a major oil-refining, education, transport and agriculture hub. Other historic cities of Siberia include Tobolsk (the first capital and

2100-623: The Ainu people ). Evidence from full genomic studies suggests that the first people in the Americas diverged from Ancient East Asians about 36,000 years ago and expanded northwards into Siberia, where they encountered and interacted with Ancient North Eurasians, giving rise to both Paleosiberian peoples and Ancient Native Americans , which later migrated towards the Beringian region, became isolated from other populations, and subsequently populated

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2200-624: The Arctic Ocean (the other two being the Ob and the Lena ). The maximum depth of the Yenisey is 61 metres (200 ft) and the average depth is 14 metres (45 ft). The Yenisey proper, from the confluence of its source rivers the Great Yenisey and Little Yenisey at Kyzyl to its mouth in the Kara Sea , is 3,487 km (2,167 mi) long. From the source of its tributary the Selenga , it

2300-676: The Late Carboniferous through Jurassic Verkhoyansk foldbelt , on the northwest by the Paleozoic Taymr foldbelt, and on the southeast, south and southwest by the Middle Silurian to Middle Devonian Baykalian foldbelt. A regional geologic reconnaissance study begun in 1932 and followed by surface and subsurface mapping revealed the Markova-Angara Arch ( anticline ). This led to the discovery of

2400-831: The Nenets people as the Kolta or Kuay ; and to the Siberian Tatars as the Umar or Omass . The Ob forms 25 km (16 mi) southwest of Biysk in Altai Krai at the confluence of the Biya and Katun rivers. Both these streams have their origin in the Altai Mountains , which gradually give way to the Ob Plateau . The Biya has its sources in Lake Teletskoye and the 700 kilometres (430 mi) long Katun in

2500-619: The Nganasan word "Jentajea", the Enets "Jeddosi", and the Selkup "N'andesi", all meaning "Yenisei River", might correspond to unidentified Samoyed languages, probably quoted Matthias Castrén 's vocabulary. V. K. Nikonov has proposed that the word could derive from "iondessi" (иондесси), meaning "big river" in Selkup, Khanty , or even Evenki . More recently, some have speculated that "Yenisei"

2600-589: The Ob and Yenisey rivers, resulting in a redirection southwest into the Caspian and Aral seas via the Turgai Valley . The area is very swampy, and soils are mostly peaty histosols and, in the treeless northern part, histels . In the south of the plain, where permafrost is largely absent, rich grasslands that are an extension of the Kazakh Steppe formed the original vegetation, most of which

2700-624: The Omsk Refinery . Yenisei 18,050 m /s (637,000 cu ft/s) (Period of data: 1940–2017) 588 km /a (18,600 m /s) The Yenisey ( / ˌ j ɛ n ɪ ˈ s eɪ / YEN -iss- AY ; Russian : Енисе́й , pronounced [jɪnʲɪˈsʲej] ) is the fifth-longest river system in the world, and the largest to drain into the Arctic Ocean . Rising in Mungaragiyn-gol in Mongolia, it follows

2800-573: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . The volcanic event is one of the largest known volcanic eruptions in Earth's history . Only the extreme northwest was glaciated during the Quaternary , but almost all is under exceptionally deep permafrost, and the only tree that can thrive, despite the warm summers, is the deciduous Siberian Larch ( Larix sibirica ) with its very shallow roots. Outside

2900-495: The Siberian sturgeon ( Acipenser baerii ). The Yenisey valley is habitat for numerous flora and fauna, with Siberian pine and Siberian larch being notable tree species. In prehistoric times Scots pine , Pinus sylvestris , was abundant in the Yenisey valley c.  6000 BC . There are also numerous bird species present in the watershed, including, for example, the hooded crow , Corvus cornix . The Taimyr herd of tundra reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus sibiricus ),

3000-684: The Soviet Union (especially in the 1930s and 1940s), the government used the Gulag state agency to administer a system of penal labour camps , replacing the previous katorga system. According to semi-official Soviet estimates, which did not become public until after the fall of the Soviet government in 1991, from 1929 to 1953 more than 14 million people passed through these camps and prisons, many of them in Siberia. Another seven to eight million people were internally deported to remote areas of

3100-737: The Soviet Union . The first written mention of the Yenisei River dates back to the 7th century in Tang Dynasty China, at the time of contact with Yenisei Kyrgyz of this region. The word Jian shui (劔水, "Jian River") appears in Book of Zhou , vol. 50, and History of the Northern Dynasties , vol. 99, while Jian he (劍河, "Jian River") appears in New Book of Tang , vol. 217. In addition, Qian he (謙河, "Qian River")

Ob - Misplaced Pages Continue

3200-528: The Sym . In 1862 Paul Theodor von Krusenstern attempted to navigate with two ships from Murmansk through the Kara Sea to the delta of the river Yenissei, but unfortunately was shipwrecked before obtaining success. During World War II , Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire agreed to divide Asia along a line that followed the Yenisey to the border of China and then along the border of China and

3300-527: The Taymyr Peninsula are believed to have been the last places on Earth to support woolly mammoths as isolated populations until their extinction around 2000 BC. At least three species of humans lived in southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago: H. sapiens , H. neanderthalensis , and the Denisovans . In 2010, DNA evidence identified the last as a separate species. Late Paleolithic southern Siberians appear to be related to Paleolithic Europeans and

3400-535: The Taz River . It is believed that the name of the Yenisei River was transmitted, either directly or indirectly, from Samoyed-speaking peoples in the region with whom the Russians had contact. This contact eventually led to the adoption of the name "Yenisei", with a Russian accent. Additionally, by the end of the 16th century, the Yenisei River was already known to Dutch navigators, who referred to it as "Gilissi", "Gelissi", or "Geniscea", among other names. Although

3500-566: The Tom functioned as an important terminus. Tyumen had its first steamboat in 1836, and steamboats have navigated the middle reaches of the Ob since 1845. In 1916, there were 49 steamers on the Ob; 10 on the Yenisei. In an attempt to extend the Ob navigable system even further, a system of canals , utilising the Ket , 900 km (560 mi) long in all, was built in the late 19th-century to connect

3600-576: The Urals , which had been known of since the 11th century or earlier, while the name Siberia is first mentioned in Russian chronicles at the start of the 15th century in connection with the death of the khan Tokhtamysh , in "the Siberian land". Some sources say that "Siberia" originates from the Siberian Tatar word for 'sleeping land' ( Sib-ir ). A different hypothesis claims that the region

3700-577: The Usa to the lower reaches of the Ob. The second route went down the Northern Dvina , then along the coasts of the White Sea and Kara Sea , before reaching the mouth of the Ob. The Russian settlements of Beryozov and Obdorsk were founded towards the end of the 16th century on the lower reaches of the Ob, while Surgut was founded on the middle course of the Ob. Until the early 20th century,

3800-526: The Yakuts , Tuvans , Altai , and Khakas , are Indigenous —along with the Mongolic Buryats , ethnic Koreans , and smaller groups of Samoyedic and Tungusic peoples (several of whom are classified as Indigenous small-numbered peoples by the Russian government), among many others. The origin of the name is uncertain. The Russian name Yugra was applied to the northern lands east of

3900-619: The Yenisei and the Lena ). Its flow is north-westward, then northward. The main city on its banks is Novosibirsk , the largest city in Siberia, and the third-largest city in Russia. It is where the Trans-Siberian Railway crosses the river. The Gulf of Ob is the world's longest estuary . The internationally known name of the river is based on the Russian name Обь ( Obʹ , IPA: [opʲ] ). Possibly from Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hā́p- , "river, water" (compare Vedic Sanskrit áp- , Persian āb , Tajik ob , and Pashto obə , "water"). Katz (1990) proposes Komi ob 'river' as

4000-407: The Yugh people have lived along the banks of the Yenisey since ancient times, and this region is the location of the Yeniseian language family . The Ket, numbering about 1000, are the only survivors today of those who originally lived throughout central southern Siberia near the river banks. Their extinct relatives included the Kotts, Assans, Arins, Baikots and Pumpokols who lived further upriver to

4100-426: The 16th century has led to perceptions of the region as culturally and ethnically European. Over 85% of its population are of European descent , chiefly Russian (comprising the Siberian sub-ethnic group), and Eastern Slavic cultural influences predominate throughout the region. Nevertheless, there exist sizable ethnic minorities of Asian lineage, including various Turkic communities—many of which, such as

Ob - Misplaced Pages Continue

4200-425: The 18th century, Chinese maps show ᡴᡝ᠊ᠮ᠊ᠠ ᠪᡳ᠊ᡵᠠ Kem bira “Kem River” ( the Kangxi Imperial Atlas of China (康煕皇輿全覧図) in 1717), ᡴᡝ᠊ᠮ᠊ᠠ ᡳ ᠪᠣ᠊ᠮ Kem-i bom “Cliffs of the Kem River” ( the Yongzheng Atlas (雍正十排図) in 1727 or 1728), 伊克穆必拉 ( yeke Kem bira ) “Great Kem River” ( the Ch'ien-lung Atlas (乾隆内府輿図) in 1769). The etymology of Käm is not believed to be of Turkic origin, and although

4300-416: The 1960s through 1980s, Soviet engineers and administrators contemplated a gigantic project to divert some of the waters of Ob and Irtysh to Kazakhstan and the Soviet Central Asian republics, replenishing the Aral Sea as well. The project never left the drawing board, abandoned in 1986 for economic and environmental considerations. The water in the river is significantly polluted. In the lower reaches,

4400-413: The Americas. During past millennia, different groups of nomads – such as the Enets , the Nenets , the Huns , the Xiongnu , the Scythians , and the Yugur – inhabited various parts of Siberia. The Afanasievo and Tashtyk cultures of the Yenisey valley and Altay Mountains are associated with the Indo-European migrations across Eurasia. The proto-Mongol Khitan people also occupied parts of

4500-626: The Markovo Oil Field in 1962 with the Markovo—1 well, which produced from the Early Cambrian Osa Horizon bar - sandstone at a depth of 2,156 metres (7,073 ft). The Sredne-Botuobin Gas Field was discovered in 1970, producing from the Osa and the Proterozoic Parfenovo Horizon. The Yaraktin Oil Field was discovered in 1971, producing from the Vendian Yaraktin Horizon at depths of up to 1,750 metres (5,740 ft), which lies below Permian to Lower Jurassic basalt traps . The climate of Siberia varies dramatically, but it typically has warm but short summers and long, brutally cold winters. On

4600-534: The North-East Camps ) along the Kolyma and Norillag near Norilsk , where 69,000 prisoners lived in 1952. Major industrial cities of Northern Siberia, such as Norilsk and Magadan , developed from camps built by prisoners and run by former prisoners. Siberia spans an area of 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), covering the vast majority of Russia's total territory, and almost 9% of Earth's land surface (148,940,000 km , 57,510,000 sq mi). It geographically falls in Asia, but

4700-404: The Ob basin provided for (somewhat indirect) transport in the east–west direction as well. The Novgorodians were aware of the lands of western Siberia from at least the 11th century, which were designated by the Russian word Yugra . Novgorod established two trade routes to the Ob River, both starting from the town of Ustyug . The first route went along the Sukhona and Vychegda , then along

4800-399: The Ob river, the largest being Novosibirskaya GES. The navigable waters within the Ob basin reach a total length of 15,000 km (9,300 mi). The importance of navigation in the Ob basin for transport was particularly great before the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway , since, despite the general south-to-north direction of the flow of Ob and most of its tributaries, the width of

4900-417: The Ob with the Yenisei , but soon abandoned as being uncompetitive with the railway . The Trans-Siberian Railway, once completed, provided for more direct, year-round transport in the east–west direction. But the Ob river-system still remained important for connecting the huge expanses of Tyumen Oblast and Tomsk Oblast with the major cities along the Trans-Siberian route, such as Novosibirsk or Omsk . In

5000-443: The Ob. From their respective sources to the confluence, the Irtysh measures 4,248 kilometers (2,640 mi) and the Ob 2,538 km (1,577 mi). Other noteworthy tributaries are: from the east, the Tom , Chulym , Ket , Tym and Vakh rivers; and, from the west and south, the Vasyugan , Irtysh (with the Ishim and Tobol rivers), and Severnaya Sosva . The Ob zigzags west and north until it reaches 55° N, where it curves to

5100-423: The Pacific coast, not the watershed, is the eastern boundary (thus including the whole Russian Far East), as well as all Northern Kazakhstan is its subregion in the south-west or a somewhat narrower one that limits Siberia to the Siberian Federal District (thus excluding all subjects of other districts). In Russian, 'Siberia' is commonly used as a substitute for the name of the federal district by those who live in

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5200-444: The Russian Far East, and even Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan and Harbin in China. Novosibirsk is the largest by population and the most important city for the Siberian economy; with an extra boost since 2000 when it was designated a regional center for the executive bureaucracy ( Siberian Federal District ). Omsk is a historic and currently the second largest city in the region, and since 1950s hosting Russia's largest oil refinery,

5300-400: The Siberian Khanate in the 16th century. First, groups of traders and Cossacks began to enter the area. The Russian army was directed to establish forts farther and farther east to protect new Russian settlers who migrated from Europe. Towns such as Mangazeya , Tara , Yeniseysk , and Tobolsk developed, the last becoming the de facto capital of Siberia from 1590. At this time, Sibir was

5400-462: The Soviet Union (including entire nationalities or ethnicities in several cases). Half a million (516,841) prisoners died in camps from 1941 to 1943 during World War II . At other periods, mortality was comparatively lower. The size, scope, and scale of the Gulag slave-labour camps remain subjects of much research and debate. Many Gulag camps operated in extremely remote areas of northeastern Siberia. The best-known clusters included Sevvostlag (

5500-414: The Turks and the Chinese and other legends. There are also examples of Uyghur poetry, though most have survived only in Chinese translation. Wheat from the Yenisey was sold by Muslims and Uighurs during inadequate harvests to Bukhara and Soghd during the Tahirid era. Russians first reached the upper Yenisey in 1605, travelling from the Ob, up the Ket , portaging and then down the Yenisey as far as

5600-481: The Yenisey are, from source to mouth: A significant feature of the Upper Yenisei is Lake Baikal , the deepest and oldest lake in the world. The Brekhovskie Islands (Russian-language article: Бреховские острова ) lie in the Yenisey estuary and have an area of some 1,400,000 hectares. They provide a wetland habitat for rare and endangered birds and are an internationally important nesting and breeding area for several types of waterfowl . The most north-easterly of

5700-432: The Yenisey basin are relatively widespread Euro- Siberian or Siberian species, such as northern pike ( Esox lucius ), common roach ( Rutilus rutilus ), common dace ( Leuciscus leuciscus ), Siberian sculpin ( Cottus poecilopus ), European perch ( Perca fluviatilis ) and Prussian carp ( Carassius gibelio ). The basin is also home to many salmonids (trout, whitefish , charr , graylings, taimen and relatives) and

5800-499: The ages. Historically, Siberia was defined as the whole part of Russia and North Kazakhstan to the east of Ural Mountains , including the Russian Far East . According to this definition, Siberia extended eastward from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific coast, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the border of Central Asia and the national borders of both Mongolia and China. Soviet-era sources ( Great Soviet Encyclopedia and others) and modern Russian ones usually define Siberia as

5900-407: The area between the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea . Since 1988, experimentation at Pleistocene Park has proposed to restore the grasslands of prehistoric times by conducting research on the effects of large herbivores on permafrost, suggesting that animals, rather than climate, maintained the past ecosystem. The nature reserve park also conducts climatic research on the changes expected from

6000-431: The area of its basin 2,990,000 square kilometres (1,150,000 sq mi). The river basin of the Ob consists mostly of steppe , taiga , swamps, tundra , and semi-desert topography. The floodplains of the Ob are characterised by many tributaries and lakes. The Ob is icebound at southern Barnaul from early in November to near the end of April, and at northern Salekhard , 150 km (93 mi) above its mouth, from

6100-413: The atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas 22 times more powerful than carbon dioxide . In 2008 a research expedition for the American Geophysical Union detected levels of methane up to 100 times above normal in the atmosphere above the Siberian Arctic , likely the result of methane clathrates being released through holes in a frozen "lid" of seabed permafrost around the outfall of the Lena and

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6200-456: The central one is officially referred to as " Siberian "; the other two are the Ural and Far Eastern federal districts, named for the Ural and Russian Far East regions that correspond respectively to the western and eastern thirds of Siberia in the broader sense. Siberia is known for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C (−13 °F). Although it is geographically in Asia, Russian sovereignty and colonization since

6300-458: The coldest inhabited point in the Northern hemisphere. Each town also frequently reaches 30 °C (86 °F) in the summer, giving them, and much of the rest of Russian Siberia, the world's greatest temperature variation between summer's highs and winter's lows, often well over 94–100+ °C (169–180+ °F) between the seasons. Southwesterly winds bring warm air from Central Asia and the Middle East. The climate in West Siberia (Omsk, or Novosibirsk)

6400-491: The continent of Siberia/Angaraland , which fused to Euramerica during the Late Carboniferous , as part of the formation of Pangea . The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest-known volcanic events of the last 251 million years of Earth's geological history . Their activity continued for a million years and some scientists consider it a possible cause of the " Great Dying " about 250 million years ago, – estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at

6500-415: The definition of the territory of Siberia a potentially controversial subject. In the eastern extent of Siberia there are territories which are not clearly defined as either Siberia or the Far East , making the question of "what is Siberia?" one with no clear answer, and what is a "Siberian", one of self-identification . The most populous city of Siberia, as well as the third most populous city of Russia,

6600-403: The district itself, but less commonly used to denote the federal district by people residing outside of it. Due to the different interpretations of Siberia, starting from Tyumen , to Chita , the territory generally defined as 'Siberia', some people will define themselves as 'Siberian', while others not. A number of factors in recent years, including the fomenting of Siberian separatism have made

6700-481: The end of October to the beginning of June. The Ob River crosses several climatic zones. The upper Ob valley, in the south, supports grapes, melons and watermelons, whereas the lower reaches of the Ob are Arctic tundra. The most temperate climates on the Ob are at Biysk , Barnaul, and Novosibirsk . The Ob provides irrigation, drinking water, hydroelectric energy, and fishing (the river hosts more than 50 species of fish). There are several hydroelectric power plants along

6800-584: The exact spelling varied, these are phonetically similar to "Yenisei". In particular, the modern Dutch pronunciation of "Geniscea" as [xɛnisə] is quite close to "Yenisei". The term "Yenisei" (Енисей) appeared in Russian literature slightly later, around 1600, in the form that is still used today. Unlike in Dutch, the Russian spelling has been relatively stable since the 17th century, with only minor variations such as "Yeniseya" (Енисея) or "Yenisya" (Енися). The etymology of "Yenisei" remains unclear. Renowned linguist Max Vasmer , for instance, has suggested that

6900-413: The extreme northwest, the taiga is dominant, covering a significant fraction of the entirety of Siberia. Soils here are mainly turbels , giving way to spodosols where the active layer becomes thicker and the ice-content lower. The Lena-Tunguska petroleum province includes the Central Siberian platform (some authors refer to it as the "Eastern Siberian platform"), bounded on the northeast and east by

7000-454: The future Tsar Nicholas II on his voyage to Siberia, and later conveyed Vladimir Lenin to prison. Engineers attempted to place river steamers in regular service on the river during the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The boats were needed to bring in the rails, engines and supplies. Captain Joseph Wiggins sailed the Orestes with rail in 1893. However, the sea and river route proved very difficult with several ships lost at sea and on

7100-446: The immediate source of derivation for the Russian name. Katz's proposal of a common Finno-Ugric root, borrowed early on from a pre-Indo-Iranian source related to Sanskrit ambhas- 'water' is deemed improbable by Rédei (1992), who prefers to analyse this as a later loan from a descendant of the non-nasal root form *Hā́p- . The Ob is known to the Khanty people as the As (the source of the name " Ostyak "), Yag , Kolta and Yema ; to

7200-473: The islands, Nosonovskij Ostrov ("Nose Island") was visited by Fridtjof Nansen in 1913. The Yenisey basin (excluding Lake Baikal and lakes of the Khantayka headwaters) is home to 55 native fish species, including two endemics : Gobio sibiricus (a gobionine cyprinid ) and Thymallus nigrescens (a grayling ). The grayling is restricted to Khövsgöl Nuur and its tributaries. Most fish found in

7300-538: The largest reindeer herd in the world, migrates to winter grazing ranges along the Yenisey. It had an estimated 800,000-850,000 individuals as of 2010, but has peaked at over one million. River steamers first came to the Yenisei River in 1864 and were brought in from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom across the icy Kara Sea. One was the steamer Nikolai . The steamship Thames attempted to explore

7400-474: The local population, but often met resistance, such as two campaigns in 1187 and 1193 mentioned in chronicles that were defeated. After Novgorod was annexed by Moscow , the newly emerging centralized Russian state also laid claim to the region, with Ivan III of Russia sending expeditionary forces to Siberia in 1483 and 1499–1500. The Russians received tribute, but contact with the tribes ceased after they left. The growing power of Russia began to undermine

7500-717: The maximum permissible concentrations of petroleum products are exceeded by 9-10 times. The oxygen content in the water is 4 times lower than normal The Irtysh is the major tributary of the Ob. The larger tributaries along its course are: In addition, the Nadym and the Pur River flow into the Gulf of Ob and the Taz into the Taz Estuary , a side arm of the Gulf of Ob. Cities along

7600-615: The mid-17th century, Russia had established areas of control that extended to the Pacific Ocean. Some 230,000 Russians had settled in Siberia by 1709. Siberia became one of the destinations for sending internal exiles . Exile was the main Russian punitive practice with more than 800,000 people exiled during the nineteenth century. The first great modern change in Siberia was the Trans-Siberian Railway , constructed during 1891–1916. It linked Siberia more closely to

7700-553: The most commonly occurring climate in Siberia is continental subarctic (Koppen Dfc , Dwc , or Dsc ), with the annual average temperature about −5 °C (23 °F) and an average for January of −25 °C (−13 °F) and an average for July of +17 °C (63 °F), although this varies considerably, with a July average about 10 °C (50 °F) in the taiga–tundra ecotone . The business -oriented website and blog Business Insider lists Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon , in Siberia's Sakha Republic , as being in competition for

7800-597: The name might be a combination of two words with Turkic origin, su 'water' and bir 'wild land'. Another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sihirtia or Sirtya (also Syopyr [sʲɵpᵻr])), a hypothetical Paleo-Asiatic ethnic group assimilated by the Nenets . Mongolist György Kara posits that the toponym Siberia is derived from a Mongolic word sibir , cognate with modern Buryat sheber 'dense forest'. Siberia in Paleozoic times formed

7900-538: The name of a fortress at Qashliq , near Tobolsk. Gerardus Mercator , in a map published in 1595, marks Sibier both as the name of a settlement and of the surrounding territory along a left tributary of the Ob . Other sources contend that the Sibe , an Indigenous Tungusic people , offered fierce resistance to Russian expansion beyond the Urals. Some suggest that the term "Siberia" is a russification of their ethnonym. By

8000-462: The north coast, north of the Arctic Circle , there is a very short (about one month long) summer. Almost all the population lives in the south, along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway . The climate in this southernmost part is humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa/Dfb or Dwa/Dwb ) with cold winters but fairly warm summers lasting at least four months. The annual average temperature

8100-570: The northwest, south of the Siberian Uvaly , at the western end of which it bends northwards, wheeling finally eastwards into the Gulf of Ob , a 1,000-kilometre-long (620-mile) bay of the Kara Sea , separating the Yamal Peninsula from the Gyda Peninsula . The combined Ob-Irtysh system, the fourth-longest river system of Asia (after Yenisei , and China's Yangzi and Yellow rivers), is 5,410 kilometres (3,360 mi) long, and

8200-462: The only kremlin in Siberia), Tomsk (formerly a wealthy merchant's town) and Irkutsk (former seat of Eastern Siberia's governor general, near lake Baikal). Other major cities include: Barnaul , Kemerovo , Krasnoyarsk , Novokuznetsk , Tyumen . Wider definitions of geographic Siberia also include the cities of: Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg in the Urals, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok in

8300-514: The paleolithic Jōmon people of Japan. Ancient DNA analysis has revealed that the oldest fossil known to carry the derived KITLG allele, which is responsible for blond hair in modern Europeans, is a 17,000 year old Ancient North Eurasian specimen from Siberia. Ancient North Eurasian populations genetically similar to Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Native Americans, Europeans, Ancient Central Asians, South Asians, and some East Asian groups (such as

8400-473: The rapidly industrialising Russia of Nicholas II ( r.  1894–1917 ). Around seven million Russians moved to Siberia from Europe between 1801 and 1914. Between 1859 and 1917, more than half a million people migrated to the Russian Far East. Siberia has extensive natural resources: during the 20th century, large-scale exploitation of these took place, and industrial towns cropped up throughout

8500-557: The region. At 7:15 a.m. on 30 June 1908, the Tunguska Event felled millions of trees near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River (Stony Tunguska River) in central Siberia. Most scientists believe this resulted from the air burst of a meteor or a comet. Even though no crater has ever been found, the landscape in the (sparsely inhabited) area still bears the scars of this event. In the early decades of

8600-751: The region. In the 13th century, during the period of the Mongol Empire , the Mongols conquered a large part of this area. With the breakup of the Golden Horde , the autonomous Khanate of Sibir was formed in the late-15th century. Turkic-speaking Yakut migrated north from the Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes from the 13th to 15th centuries. Siberia remained a sparsely populated area. Historian John F. Richards wrote: "it

8700-558: The reintroduction of grazing animals or large herbivores, hypothesizing that a transition from tundra to grassland would lead to a net change in energy emission to absorption ratios. According to Vasily Kryuchkov, approximately 31,000 square kilometers of the Russian Arctic has subjected to severe environmental disturbance. The term "Siberia" has both a long history and wide significance, and association. The understanding, and association of "Siberia" have gradually changed during

8800-401: The river include: From a confluence to a source: Siberia Siberia ( / s aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə / sy- BEER -ee-ə ; Russian : Сибирь , romanized :  Sibir' , IPA: [sʲɪˈbʲirʲ] ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia , from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed

8900-410: The river, overwintered in 1876, but was damaged in the ice and eventually wrecked in the river. Success came with the steamers Frazer , Express in 1878 and, the next year, Moscow hauling supplies in and wheat out. The Dalman reached Yeniseisk in 1881. Imperial Russia placed river steamers on the massive river in an attempt to free up communication with land-locked Siberia. One, St. Nicholas took

9000-522: The river. Both the Ob and Yenisey mouths feed into very long inlets, several hundred kilometres in length, which are shallow, ice bound and prone to high winds and thus treacherous for navigation. After the completion of the railway, river traffic reduced to only local service as the Arctic route and long river proved much too indirect a route. The first recreation team to navigate the Yenisey's entire length, including its violent upper tributary in Mongolia,

9100-465: The second half of the 20th century, construction of rail links to Labytnangi , Tobolsk , and the oil and gas cities of Surgut , and Nizhnevartovsk provided more railheads, but did not diminish the importance of the waterways for reaching places still not served by the rail. A dam built near Novosibirsk in 1956 created the then-largest artificial lake in Siberia , called Novosibirsk Reservoir . From

9200-589: The south. The modern Ket lived in the eastern middle areas of the river before being assimilated politically into Russia during the 17th through 19th centuries. Some of the earliest known evidence of Turkic origins was found in the Yenisey Valley in the form of stelae , stone monoliths and memorial tablets dating from between the seventh and ninth centuries AD, along with some documents that were found in China's Xinjiang region . The written evidence gathered from these sources tells of battles fought between

9300-497: The southernmost portion of its western boundary, and includes most of the drainage basin of the Arctic Ocean . It is further defined as stretching from the territories within the Arctic Circle in the north to the northern borders of Kazakhstan , Mongolia , and China in the south, although the hills of north-central Kazakhstan are also commonly included. The Russian government divides the region into three federal districts (groupings of Russian federal subjects ), of which only

9400-663: The suffix -kem -кем in the Altai Republic , and the term Kim (Ким) as in Kim suγ (Ким суғ), meaning "Yenisei River" barely exists in Khakas . All of these instances are confined to the region in and around the present-day Republic of Tuva . Meanwhile, in the 17th century, Russians reached the lower part of the Yenisei River from the northwest; along the way, by 1600, the Tobolsk Cossacks built Fort Mangazeya by

9500-523: The time. The region has paleontological significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch , preserved in ice or permafrost . Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs , Yuka the mammoth and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon , a woolly rhinoceros from the Kolyma , and bison and horses from Yukagir have been found. Remote Wrangel Island and

9600-478: The title of the Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold . Oymyakon is a village which recorded a temperature of −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F) on 6 February 1933. Verkhoyansk , a town further north and further inland, recorded a temperature of −69.8 °C (−93.6 °F) for three consecutive nights: 5, 6 and 7 February 1933. Each town is alternately considered the Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold –

9700-567: The winter, southern Siberia sits near the center of the semi-permanent Siberian High , so winds are usually light in the winter. Precipitation in Siberia is generally low, exceeding 500 millimetres (20 in) only in Kamchatka , where moist winds flow from the Sea of Okhotsk onto high mountains – producing the region's only major glaciers , though volcanic eruptions and low summer temperatures allow only limited forests to grow. Precipitation

9800-509: Was an Australian-Canadian expedition completed in September 2001. Ben Kozel , Tim Cope, Colin Angus and Remy Quinter were on this team. Both Kozel and Angus wrote books detailing this expedition, and a documentary was produced for National Geographic Television. A canal inclined plane was built on the river in 1985 at the Krasnoyarsk Dam . Nomadic tribes such as the Ket people and

9900-486: Was extensively glaciated in the Pleistocene, but the climate was too dry for glaciation to extend to low elevations. At these low elevations are numerous valleys, many of them deep and covered with larch forest, except in the extreme north where the tundra dominates. Soils are mainly turbels (a type of gelisol ). The active layer tends to be less than one metre deep, except near rivers. The highest point in Siberia

10000-513: Was named after the Sibe people . The Polish historian Jan Chyliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the Proto-Slavic word for 'north' (cf. Russian север sever ), as in Severia . Anatole Baikaloff has dismissed this explanation. He said that the neighboring Chinese, Turks, and Mongolians, who have similar names for the region, would not have known Russian. He suggested that

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