It stretches from the Urals to Lake Baikal and it is bordered by Europe on one end and Japan on another. This is 'the sleeping land', Siberia, the unique place on Earth where minus 15 Celsius means - warm like it's spring.
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After the formation of USSR, the nations were mixed in the whole country, and Siberia is not the exception. Along with Russians and Ukrainians as majority, there are several tribes scattered around and it's interesting how USSR government organized things: The nomadic Mongol and Turkic herders on the South settled down to agriculture, and the natives of central and North Siberia remain mostly hunters and fishermen. The very fact that nomads settled down shows how huge was the political pressure in USSR. However, they managed to keep their religion, from Christianism, to Islam, Buddhism and even shamanism.
The cold data say that: Siberia is 2/3 of Russia's territory, it has 7 time zones, it has less than one inhabitant per square kilometre, and it's the world’s richest area in natural resources. Novosibirsk is the largest and wealthiest Siberia's city well known by Akademgorodok (Academytown), the educational and scientific centre of Siberia. It is "Russia's Oxford" or "Silicon Forest" how people like to call it. And Novosibirsk opera and ballet theatre is the largest theatre in Russia, larger than Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre.
Together with "cold", the Trans-Siberian Railway is probably the first thought that comes to mind when thinking about Siberia. That is the longest railway in the world, built between 1891 and 1916. It is 9529 km long and it goes from Moscow all the way down to Beijing in China and to Vladivostok. From Moscow to Vladivostok you'll need 6 days and 4 hours during which you'll have plenty of time for sightseeing the rough nature around you.
Since Siberia is so huge, the climate varies dramatically and you can find the summer one month long on the North and temperatures of -70C, and very nice temperatures on the South, ranging from 0C to 20C. One member of that rough climate you certainly know: that's Siberian Husky. Those strong, working sled dogs are recognizable by thickly-furred double coat and they can stand temperatures as low as -60C! The other inhabitant is beautiful Siberian tiger, the world's largest cat. It's endangered species with only 300 to 400 Siberian tigers living in the wild.
One of the most beautiful parts between Siberian Russia and Mongolia is the natural border between forests to the north and grass fields to the south. At that very place you will find 636 km long, 80 km wide and 1,620 metres deep Lake Baikal, the reservoir of 25 percent of the all the fresh water on our planet. To get the picture, let's say that all of the rivers on Earth would need to flow a whole year to fill it! During the long Siberian winter it freezes over and the ice is so thick that the train can pass over it.
And in the summer Lake Baikal's crystal blue waters are transparent to a depth of 40 meters. Surrounded with snowy peaks of the beautiful Barguzin Mountains which are always fantastic no matter how many times you see them. Blue and deep, Baikal presents the most fascinating part of Russia - Siberia. ■
