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97-681: The goal was to find and map the eastern reaches of Siberia , and hopefully the western shores of North America . Peter I had a vision for the 18th-century Russian Navy to map a Northern Sea Route from Europe to the Pacific. This far-reaching endeavour was sponsored by the Admiralty College in Saint Petersburg . With over 3,000 people directly and indirectly involved, the Second Kamchatka Expedition

194-587: 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

291-707: 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

388-632: A search party for Bering's ship St. Peter . During this trip, he located Attu Island . Chirikov took part in creating the final map of the Russian discoveries in the Pacific Ocean (1746). In 1746 was assigned the Director of Academy of the Naval Guard , St. Petersburg. Chirikov's name is given to Capes of the Kyūshū Island, Attu Island , Anadyr Bay , Tauyskaya Bay , an underwater mountain in

485-495: A second, which also vanished. Chirikov weighed anchor and moved on. On roughly July 16, 1741, Bering and the crew of St. Peter sighted a towering peak on the Alaska mainland, Mount Saint Elias . Bering was anxious to return to Russia and turned westward. He later anchored his vessel off Kayak Island while crew members went ashore to explore and find water. Georg Wilhelm Steller , the ship's naturalist and physician, hiked around

582-575: A small boat to survey the coast of the rivers Lena and Yenisei. The expedition was originally under the control of Bering. Bering's main goal was to discover a passage or strait between America and Asia. During Bering's first expedition he did not complete this goal. Bering's deputy and successor, Alexi Chirkov or Aleksei Chirikov , was designated navigator of the expedition, as he was a Russian naval officer who had attended school for mathematics and navigation. The central goals in Bering's vision for

679-505: 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

776-424: 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

873-655: 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

970-530: 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

1067-425: 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

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1164-655: Is known about Chirikov's early life other than that the Russian was born in 1703. There is a claim, which originated in 1941, that he was the son of one of Peter the Great's master carpenters . It is known that Chirikov began his service in the Russian Imperial Navy in 1716, and later in 1721 he graduated from the Naval Academy with the rank of Sub-lieutenant . In 1725–1730 and 1733–1743, he

1261-667: 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

1358-603: 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

1455-473: 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

1552-626: 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

1649-623: 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

1746-676: 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

1843-636: 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

1940-633: The Omsk Refinery . Aleksei Chirikov Aleksei Ilyich Chirikov ( Russian : Алексе́й Ильи́ч Чи́риков ; 1703 – November 14, 1748) was a Russian navigator and captain who, along with Vitus Bering , was the first Russian to reach the northwest coast of North America . He discovered and charted some of the Aleutian Islands while he was deputy to Vitus Bering during the Great Northern Expedition . Little

2037-573: 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

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2134-684: 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

2231-553: The St. Paul set sail from Petropavlovsk . Six days later they lost sight of each other in a thick fog, but both vessels continued to sail east. On July 15, Chirikov sighted land, probably the west side of Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. He sent a group of men ashore in a long boat, making them the first Europeans to land on the northwestern coast of North America . When the first group failed to return, he sent

2328-593: 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

2425-576: 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

2522-526: 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

2619-426: 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

2716-843: 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

2813-701: The First Kamchatka Expedition, and had been charged with exploring the sea route from Okhotsk to Japan and China. The academic portion of the expedition was led by three professors from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Johann Georg Gmelin (1709–1755) was responsible for research into the plant and animal world as well as the mineral characteristics of the regions to be explored. Gmelin was a natural philosopher and botanist from Württemberg , who had studied in Tübingen and had researched

2910-537: The German doctor Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (1685–1735) traveled from 1720 to 1727 to western and central Siberia. This was the beginning of investigation in geography, mineralogy, botany, zoology, ethnography, and philology there, as well as an opening-up of the region to trade. Messerschmidt's Expedition was the first in a long series of scientific explorations of Siberia. Shortly before his death in February 1725,

3007-634: The Great's territorial and economic expansion of the empire. The empress issued an Ukase issued on April 17, 1732, ordering a new expedition. This was followed on May 2 and 15, 1732 by two further Ukases from the Russian Senate to the Admiralty ordering the preparation of the undertaking, and the commissioning of Vitus Bering as its commander. Another Ukase on June 2, 1732, obligated the Russian Academy of Sciences to prepare instructions for

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3104-1147: 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

3201-704: 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

3298-502: 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

3395-622: 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,

3492-467: 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

3589-643: The Sino-Russian border city of Kyakhta in Transbaikal and visited the mines near Argun . They then returned to Irkutsk for the winter. In the meantime, Müller located and investigated area archives and made copies and transcriptions, while Gmelin studied plants he had collected over the course of the summer. Their next destination was Yakutsk , where the participants in the academic component were to meet with Bering and were then meant to travel on to Kamchatka together. After their departure from Irkutsk,

3686-575: 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 (

3783-421: The St. Paul with Vitus Bering , Georg Wilhelm Steller was a naturalist by trade and contributed an considerable amount to the scientific observation and recording on the expedition. In his time on the journey, he sampled and recorded many plant and bird species that Europeans had never been exposed to. He was the first European to encounter and document the Aleut people. In June 1741, the ships St. Peter and

3880-400: The Tsar signed an Ukase (decree) authorizing a second great expedition to the east. Over the course of his life, Peter had met many times with German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). At their final meeting at Bad Pyrmont in 1716, Leibniz spoke of a possible land bridge between northeastern Asia and the North America, a point of great relevance in contemporary discussion about

3977-434: The academic group departed on August 8, 1733. In addition to the academy members Gmelin , Müller and Croyère , the group also included the Russian students Stepan Krasheninnikov , Alexei Grolanov, Luka Ivanov, Wassili Tretjakov and Fyodor Popov, the translator (also a student) Ilya Jaontov, the geodesists Andrei Krassilnikov, Moisei Uschakov, Nikifor Tschekin and Alexandr Ivanov, the instrument maker Stepan Ovsjanikov, and

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4074-424: The academy as an adjunct for astronomy. In 1727 he was promoted to professor and was sent on a three-year exploration survey of Arkhangelsk and the Kola Peninsula , giving him some experience in exploration expeditions. The participants in the academic portion of the expedition were answerable not to its leader Bering, but to the Academy of Sciences. Each of the professors received a precise commission in regard to

4171-417: The accomplishment of their research program. The directions given to Croyère and his geodesists were written by his brother Joseph Nicolas. Gmelin wrote the instruction for his own research work in natural history. He received further instructions from the anatomist Johannes Georg Duvernoi (1691–1759), who had been part of the teaching faculty in Tübingen. Among other things, Duvernoi wanted to find out whether

4268-499: 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

4365-407: 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

4462-413: 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

4559-456: 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

4656-475: The chemical composition of curative waters. At the urging of his former teacher Georg Bernhard Bilfinger (1693–1750), Gmelin had moved to Russia with him in 1727. There he received a teaching post in chemistry and natural history in 1731. The academy chose the German historian and geographer Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705–1783) to head the geographic and historical studies. Müller had studied in Rinteln and Leipzig and had gone to Saint Petersburg in 1725 on

4753-405: The coast no longer extended north. He failed to reach North America in either trip, due to adverse weather. Despite the new knowledge about the northeast coast of Siberia, Bering's report led to divisive debate, because the question of a connection with North America remained unanswered. This prompted Bering to propose a second Kamchatka expedition. They had originally planned to make one journey in

4850-429: The coast of Kamchatka. Steller attempted to treat the crew's scurvy with local leaves and berries he had gathered, but officers dismissed him. Steller and his assistant were some of the few voyagers who did not suffer from scurvy. On the return journey, with only 12 members of the crew able to move and the rigging rapidly failing, the expedition was shipwrecked on what later became known as Bering Island . Almost half of

4947-458: 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)

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5044-491: 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

5141-468: The crew had perished during the voyage. Bering was among the crew to fall sick with scurvy and died on December 8, 1741. The stranded crew wintered on the island, with 28 crew members dying. When weather improved, the 46 survivors built a 40-foot (12 m) boat from the wreckage and set sail for Petropavlovsk in August 1742. Bering's crew reached the shore of Kamchatka in 1742, carrying word of the expedition. The sea otter pelts they brought, soon judged to be

5238-415: 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,

5335-403: 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

5432-431: The east. It has formed 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

5529-399: The eastern part of Asia was at the initiative of Tsar Peter the Great (1672–1725). In December 1725, the institution was inaugurated with celebrations. Young, mostly German-speaking scholars formed the core of the academy in its first decades. One of their tasks was to organize and eventually accompany scientific expeditions to then-unexplored parts of the empire . During Peter's lifetime,

5626-501: The expedition was due not only to his desire to have access to historical sources through the expedition, but to spend some time away from Saint Petersburg. It was while engaged in this trip that he developed his concept of Ethnography . On the suggestion of the astronomer Joseph Nicolas Delisle (1688–1768), the Academy of Sciences entrusted the job of astronomical and geographic metrology to Delisle's younger brother, Louis de l'Isle de la Croyère (1690–1741). Louis had been working at

5723-413: 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

5820-400: The finest fur in the world, would spark Russian settlement in Alaska . 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

5917-479: The foundations for determining the status of the north east passage as a possible connection between Europe and the Pacific Ocean. It was seen as a possible alternative to the land transport used in Russia's trade with China. From " Joao-da-Gama-Land ", Bering's group was to set out farther east to the coast of North America. The second Pacific division was under the command of the Danish-born Russian captain Martin Spanberg (d. 1761), who had accompanied Bering on

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6014-404: The history of all the cities the expedition would visit and collecting information about the languages of the groups they would meet along the way. The painters Johann Christian Berckhan (died 1751) and Johann Wilhelm Lürsenius (died around 1770), both of whom were part of the academic component, got special instructions. The academy directed all the researchers to prepare reports about the state and

6111-407: The island and documented the plants and wildlife. Steller kept a diary that has detailed accounts of their voyage from 1741-1742. It details the hardships and different situations that the crew and himself went through. He notes in his manuscripts of signs of native Kamchatkans and that the crew left them an iron kettle, a pound of tobacco, a Chinese pipe, and a piece of Chinese silk in a "cellar" that

6208-514: The land bridge question. In 1724, Peter gave the same task to another expedition, the First Kamchatka expedition . This undertaking, lasting from 1728 to 1730, was led by the Danish-born Russian captain Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681–1741), an officer in the Russian imperial navy since 1704. In the ship St. Gabriel , which had been built at the outlet of the Kamchatka River , Bering made two voyages northeast in successive years (1728 and 1729), and at one point reached 67 degrees north, from which point

6305-474: 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

6402-478: 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

6499-553: 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

6596-486: 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

6693-436: 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

6790-482: The new expedition was the survey of the northern coast of the Russian Empire; the expansion of the port of Okhotsk as the gateway to the Pacific Ocean; the search for a sea route to North America and Japan; the opening of access to Siberian natural resources; and finally, the securing of Russian sovereignty in the eastern parts of Asia. The conditions for this gigantic project proved to very favourable. Empress Anna (1693–1740), reigning from 1730, wanted to continue Peter

6887-400: 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

6984-509: The northern and north-eastern coast of Russia and the Kuril Islands . It definitively refuted the legend of a land mass in the north Pacific, and did ethnographic, historic, and scientific research into Siberia and Kamchatka. When the expedition failed to round the north-east tip of Asia, the dream of an economically viable Northeast passage , sought since the 16th century, was at an end. Systematic exploration and scientific discovery in

7081-514: 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

7178-474: The origins of humanity, among other matters. The common origin of humans was generally accepted, but it posed the problem of the origins of human settlements in the New World . To resolve the question of a land bridge, Peter the Great sent in 1719 the geodesists Iwan Jewreinow (1694–1724) and Fjodor Luschin (died 1727) to the easternmost reaches of his empire. The expedition was unsuccessful, at least as to

7275-481: The painters Johann Christian Berckhan and Johann Wilhelm Lürsenius. Two soldiers accompanied them for their protection, together with a corporal and a drummer. The group used horses as land transportation and barges on water. The academic component's travel route took them first to Novgorod , Kazan , Jekaterinburg and Tyumen to Tobolsk , where they arrived in January 1734. In May, Gmelin and Müller separated from

7372-514: 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

7469-418: The peoples of Siberia could move their ears, whether their uvulas were simple, or split into two or three parts, whether Siberian males had milk in their breasts, etc. The physicist Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) authored instructions intended for Croyère and Gmelin about the carrying out of series of physical observations. The historian Müller drafted his own plan of work. His chief goals consisted of researching

7566-406: 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

7663-482: The recommendation of a colleague. He became an extraordinary professor in 1730, and a year later was promoted to full professor. He researched Russian history intensively, resulting in the publication in 1732 of the first volume of the Collected History of Russia . Because of Müller's haughty bearing as the chancellor's secretary, there was frequent friction between him and his colleagues. His participation in

7760-557: 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

7857-751: 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

7954-558: 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

8051-524: The rest of the group, who were put under Croyères' leadership, and travelled until December 1734 to the Irtysh River , and then onwards to Semipalatinsk , Kusnezk near Tomsk , and then onto Yeniseysk . Passing through Krasnoyarsk and Udinsk , they reached Irkutsk in March 1735. They left a portion of their baggage train there and began to survey the area around Lake Baikal . They studied trade in

8148-527: The results of the expedition in Russian and Latin. The academic component of the expedition was provided with many astronomical, geodesic, and physical measuring instruments to pursue its research. The governor of Siberia and the various local authorities were ordered to provide the researchers all the aid they required. The two Pacific divisions of the expedition, led by Martin Spanberg and Vitus Bering , left St. Petersburg in February and April 1733, while

8245-558: The scientific component of the journey. A further Ukase on December 27, 1732, concerned the organization and the formal commissioning of the expedition. The expedition was separated into three groups, each with further subdivisions. The mission of the northern group was to measure and chart the northern coast of Russia between Archangelsk on the White Sea and the Anadyr River in eastern Siberia. The completion of this mission set

8342-532: The south end of the Alaska Panhandle . This was about 450 miles southeast of Bering's landfall near Mount St. Elias at the north end of the panhandle. Unable to find a harbor he sailed north along Baranov Island past the later Russian base at Sitka . He sent out a longboat to find an anchorage. When it did not return after a week he sent out his second longboat which also failed to return. Now without any small boats Chirikov had no way of searching for

8439-619: 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

8536-471: 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

8633-478: 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 –

8730-533: The two longboats or landing on the coast to explore or replenish his supply of fresh water. After waiting as long as possible, he abandoned the longboats to their fate and on 27 July sailed west. He sighted the Kenai Peninsula , Kodiak Island and Adak Island near the western end of the Aleutians. With water critically low he reached Petropavlovsk on 12 October 1741. In 1742, Chirikov was in charge of

8827-564: The two scholars journeyed along the icy Angara River to Ilimsk , where they celebrated Easter. When the Lena River was free from ice, they resumed their voyage, travelling downstream with boats. They reached Yakutsk in September 1736. Almost all the members of the two Pacific divisions of the expedition had gathered there in the meantime, and as a result, Gmelin and Müller experienced difficulties in locating accommodation. Though aboard

8924-567: 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

9021-681: Was Vitus Bering's deputy during the First and the Second Kamchatka expeditions , having been made a captain in 1733. In June 1741 Chirikov in the St Paul and Vitus Bering in the St Peter , who he was serving under, left Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and headed east. Some time after 20 June they were separated by a storm and never saw each other again. On 15 July 1741 Chirikov saw land at Baker Island off Prince of Wales Island at

9118-486: 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

9215-575: Was found on the island. Steller also first recorded the Steller's jay that bears his name, as well as having a sea cow, Steller's Sea Cow , named after him. Chirikov and the St. Paul headed back to Russia in October with news of the land they had found. Bering's ship was battered by storms, and in November his ship was wrecked on the shore of Bering Island , which many of the crew thought to be

9312-563: 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

9409-553: Was one of the largest such projects in history. Its cost, completely financed by the Russian state, reached an estimated 1.5 million rubles, an enormous sum for the time; roughly one sixth of the income of the Russian state in 1724. The achievements of the expedition included the European discovery of Alaska , the Aleutian Islands , the Commander Islands , Bering Island , as well as a detailed cartographic assessment of

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