Eastern Russia

The great expanse of Russian land east of the Urals is tilted to the north with most of its south ern and eastern parts being mountainous. One highland that stands far to the north, near 70° north latitude, is Gory Putorana (Figure 5). It is not a range but a domed plateau with a radial drainage pattern. Although its highest point is only 1,701m (G. Kaman), Putorana dominates the vast taiga plain for nearly 1,000km around. The next major ranges, Sayan and Stanovoy, are 1,500 km away west and east of Baikal Lake (Figure 4). The highland east of Sayan is so disturbed tectonically that it has led to creation of the graben lake of Baikal, the deepest in the world (1,737m). The surrounding mountains have pine and larch forests. East of the lake, a series of ranges trend north-east towards Stanovoy Khrebet. This Buryat Mongol area is endowed with rich forests and minerals such as gold, iron, tungsten, and molybdenum. A southern spur, Yablonovyj, joins the border ranges of Mongolia near Ulanbaatar. In the east, the Stanovoy Range forms the water divide between the south-flowing Amur and north-flowing Lena rivers. As the Amur turns north to join the sea, it is bounded by Sikhote Alin along the east coast.The Bureinskij Range runs parallel to Sikhote Alin west of the Amur.

East of the Stanovoy Range, the headwaters of the Lena approach to within a 100km of the Pacific but are blocked by the Dzhugdzhur Range. It is less than 2,000m in elevation and runs parallel to the north-west orientation of the coast. The extreme north-east corner of Russia beyond the Lena has a series of young mountains, some of which exceed 2,900m. It is a land of intense cold and its vegetation demonstrates a transition from taiga to tundra. Larch, pine, fir, and birch are the major species of taiga. Reindeer herding, timber extraction, fur trapping, and gold mining are important activities. The alignment of ranges is in a southern arcuate towards Magadan. The western section has two parallel ranges aligned north-west/south-east.

These are the Verkhoyanskiy and Cherskogo flanking the north-flowing Yana River. The section east of Magadan also has two parallel volcanic ranges but they are aligned south-west/north-east. The northern one, Kolymskoye, traverses the mainland, which forms its spine, until terminating in the east. The southern range is made up of the Koryakskoye on the mainland and the Sredinnyy on Kamchatka Peninsula. The peaks of the last range, exceeding 4,700m, are the highest in Eastern Russia. However, the climate is much milder here and there is adequate rain along the east coast. Fishing is a major industry along with seal hunting and lumbering.