Siberia (Sibir), originally the name of a Tartar fort on the Irtysh, is now applied to an immense territory belonging to Russia in northern Asia, bounded by the Ural Mountains on the W.; the Arctic Ocean on the N.; the seas of Behring, Okhotsk, and Japan in the E.; and the Russian provinces of the Kirghiz Steppes and Turkestan, and the Chinese empire (Mongolia and Manchuria) in the S. Taken within these limits Siberia covers an area of no less than 4,833,500 sq. m.—nearly forty times as great as that of the United Kingdom—and has a population of 4,484,550 inhabitants. Its natural divisions, broadly corresponding to the administrative ones, are: West Siberia, including the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, as also parts of Perm situated on the eastern slope of the Urals; East Siberia (governments of Yeniseisk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, and Transbaikalia); the peninsula of Kamchatka; and the Amur region, which includes the governments of Amur, Usuri, the maritime province, and the island of Saghalien (Sakhalin). The group of islands, sometimes from the principal one called Liakhov, have been described as NEW SIBERIA. The areas of the provinces with their populations are given under RUSSIA. Immense parts of this territory are still but very imperfectly mapped, especially in the wildernesses of the north and north-east—a few surveys along the chief rivers and lines of communication being the only sources of information. But the leading features of the network of highlands which covers Siberia can be stated in a few words (see also ASIA, Vol. I. pp. 485-487).
The great plateau of eastern Asia enters Siberia to the east of Lake Baikal, where it attains a height of from 3000 to 4000 feet and a width of nearly 1300 miles, and stretches therefrom, with a gradually decreasing height and width, towards the north-eastern extremity of Asia at the Behring Strait. It is fringed on its south- western border by the Great Altai and Sayan mountains, which separate Siberia from North-west Mongolia, the Barguzin and the South Muya ridges, and a series of yet unexplored and unnamed ridges stretching farther north in the same direction; while along its south-eastern border it has the Stanovoi Mountains, which rise as a high wall on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, and are continued farther south by the Great Khingan. The border-ridges of the lofty plateau are the highest in Siberia, and their peaks attain heights of from 7000 to nearly 11,000 feet, but very few of them penetrate into the region of perpetual snow. Mountains remaining snow-clad all the year round and giving origin to glaciers are met with only in the Altai (q.v.), at the Munku-Sardyck which rises to a height of 10,700 feet amongst the Sayan Mountains to the south-west of Lake Baikal, and in the highlands of the far north-east. In the remainder of Siberia, owing to the dryness of climate, and also perhaps to a warm current flowing in the upper strata of the atmosphere, the perpetual snow-line stands at a great height not attained by peaks 7000 to 9000 feet high. A broad belt of alpine tracts fringes the plateau along its north-western border, assuming a more and more gloomy aspect in proportion as they advance farther north. The whole of this belt is thickly clothed with forests, the summits only of the higher peaks (4500 to 7000 feet) rising beyond the limits of tree-vegetation. The auriferous regions of the Altai, Upper Yeniseisk, Barguzin, and Olekma are situated in this alpine belt. A belt, nearly 500 miles wide, of high plains 1700 to 2500 feet above the sea-level spreads all along the base of the alpine belt, their outer limit being, roughly speaking, a line running from Tomsk towards the north-east. They are very fertile in the south, but of course become less and less suitable for agriculture as they advance into higher latitudes. The whole of West Siberia, between these high plains and the shores of the Arctic Ocean, is an immense lowland which has barely a few hundred feet of altitude and most of which must have emerged from the sea at a quite recent post-glacial epoch. The southern part of these lowlands—the prairies of Ishim, Upper Tobol, and Baraba—is extremely fertile. The soil is a thick layer of black earth, which also penetrates into the lower valleys of the Altai, and the traveller finds there to his astonishment a territory, nearly as large as Great Britain, entirely covered with a luxurious grass-vegetation, with masses of deciduous forest, which is even now the granary of Siberia, and has grain to spare for export to the mines of the Urals. Nearly one-third of the population of Siberia is gathered on those prairies, attaining a density of 20 and 40 inhabitants to the square mile; and the population is more thoroughly Russian than in many parts of European Russia itself, the indigenous population making but two per cent. of the whole.
Farther north, and especially in the space between the Obi and the Irtysh, the country assumes a quite different character; there begin the urmans, or immense marshes which cover nearly 100,000 sq. m., entirely clothed with thickets and meagre forests, and quite impracticable in the summer. Even the bear does not venture to cross the marshes when they are not frozen. Agricultural settlements may be found in this region on the banks only of the rivers, while some 30,000 Ostiaks, Voguls, and Samoyedes find scanty means of existence in hunting and fishing. Farther north still begin the tundras, which extend along the Arctic seaboard as far as Kamchatka, and cover an aggregate area of some 450,000 sq. m.—more than twice the area of France. The climate of the tundras is really terrible; the average temperatures of De- cember and January are 15 and 35 degrees below the zero of the Fahrenheit scale; the soil is frozen to a great depth, and only thaws on its surface during the short summer. The trees disappear, only a few species venturing to struggle against the cold by spreading as low bushes or by rising but a couple of inches above the ground. The want of drainage adds to the difficulties which vegetation has to cope with, and only a few flowering plants enliven occasional small patches of better protected and dryer soil. Nevertheless some 50,000 human beings wander over these inhospitable tracts, with reindeers and dogs for dragging the sledges across the wilderness. Of the plateau which fills vast tracts in East Siberia the upper terrace, 3000 to 4000 feet high, is quite unsuitable for agriculture, in consequence of its altitude, cold climate, and want of drainage; in fact, the whole of the Vitim plateau and its continuation towards Kamchatka is quite uninhabited. But its lower terrace, which is 2500 to 3000 feet above the sea and is separated from the upper by the Yablonovoi ridge, offers, especially in Transbaikalia, great facilities for agriculture and cattle-breeding, and is peopled by both Buriats and Russians; while the smaller chains of mountains which intersect it are the seat of rich goldfields, and owing to their richness in copper, iron, and silver will certainly become some day an important centre for mining industry. The Great Khingan, which is continued farther north by the Stanovoi Khrebet and is pierced by the Amur about Kumara, is the south-eastern border-ridge of the great plateau, and it also is fringed on its outer side by an alpine belt of several chains of mountains running parallel to the border of the plateau. Owing to this character, the Stanovoi and the Great Khingan are a most important geographical boundary; properly speaking they separate Siberia from a region which is Manchurian in its physical features. As soon as the traveller has crossed this ridge (which hardly rises as a range of hills above the level of the plateau) and has descended a couple of thousand feet down a very steep slope leading to the basin of the Amur, he sees a complete change of scenery. The oak, the walnut-tree which he has not seen since he left the Urals, the vine, and a variety of bushes and trees belonging to the Manchurian and the Japanese floras suddenly make their appearance. When he has emerged from the alpine belt he finds again the same prairies which he has crossed on the Siberian slope of the plateau, and the climate of these prairies remains as continental and the winters almost as cold as in Siberia proper; but the general character of the flora and fauna is totally changed. In fact it is European no more; the species differ from their European congeners, new genera appear, and even the European species offer notable differences from the types familiar in Europe.
Another belt of high plains, 1500 to 2000 feet high, follows. These prairies, watered by the Zeya and its tributaries, and covered with a very fertile soil and excellent oak forests, are the richest part of the Amur territory, and are being rapidly occupied by immigrants, chiefly sectaries, from Russia, who already number about 60,000, and supply the gold-mines on the slope of the Stanovoi with grain and cattle. The picturesque Little Khingan or Bureya Mountains separate the prairies of the Middle Amur from the lowlands of its lower course. The whole of the latter is only now emerging from the Lacustrine period; immense lakes enclosed within quite flat shores intermingle with swamps; and when the autumn rains, due to the monsoons of the China Sea, swell the waters of the Amur and the Sungari, making of the former a stream several miles wide and covering all its low islands, the whole region becomes an immense swamp. Various small tribes of Manchurian origin (Golds, Mangoons, &c.) lead a half aquatic existence on the banks of the Lower Amur and its tributaries, while the Russian settlements are reduced to a number of villages built on the river for maintaining communication along its banks. It is on the border of this region that the capital of the Amur territory, Khabarovka, stands at the junction of the Amur with the Usuri. The rocky and inhospitable mountains of Sikhota-alin, intersected by equally low and swampy valleys, fill the remaining space towards the sea-coast—the mountains rising over the sea as a stone wall, almost entirely devoid of indentations. From Khabarovka the valley of the Usuri leads southwards to Lake Khangka and to the fertile tracts on the frontier of Corea, which surround the Gulf of Peter the Great. In that gulf Russia has at Vladivostok a splendid harbour, reminding one by its general aspect of the Golden Horn of Constantinople. The fact that the port is frozen over during great part of the year detracts from its value as a naval station, and by the acquisition of Port Arthur in the open China Sea the peculiar value of Vladivostok (q.v.) to Russia is greatly diminished. See the separate articles SAGHALIEN, KAMCHATKA.
Rivers.—The rivers of Siberia are of an immense importance for the life of the country. They all take their origin on the plateau, and, after having pierced the surrounding mountains, enter the plains, where they describe great curves and receive numbers of large tributaries before entering the sea. All of them have moreover this feature in common, that each of them is formed by the junction of a pair of great rivers: such are the Obi and the Irtysh, the Yenisei and the Tunguska, the Lena and the Vitim, the Shilka and the Argun which form the Amur. The three former enter the Arctic Ocean, and repeated efforts have been made of late by both Swedish and English explorers and traders to establish a regular communication between Europe and the mouths of the Siberian rivers, viâ the Kara Sea, which is now known to be free from ice for a few weeks every year. These efforts have not been lost, as a couple of steamers now reach every year the mouths of either the Obi or the Yenisei, with a cargo of machinery and various manufactured goods. Owing to the great depth of the Siberian rivers, Nordenskiöld was enabled to sail up the Yenisei as far south as 60° N. latitude, while a schooner which was built at Tiumen, on a tributary of the Obi system, could sail to London with a cargo of Siberian wheat. But for the interior communication the rivers are of still greater importance. A line of railway crossing the Urals now connects the Kama, a great tributary of the Volga, with the town Tiumen, and steamers ply regularly from Tiumen to Tomsk, the capital of West Siberia; to Barnaul and Biysk in the Altai Mountains; and to Semipalatinsk in the Kirghiz Steppes. Besides, a canal has recently been dug to connect the Obi with the Yenisei, and, when it has been deepened and some rapids on the Angara have been cleared, goods will be transported from the Urals to Irkutsk, the capital of East Siberia, situated within 40 miles of Lake Baikal. No less than 164 steamers (4000 horse-power) already ply on the Obi and the Irtysh. The Yenisei is also navigated as far as Minusinsk, a small town situated within 300 miles of the Mongolian frontier, in a very fertile region which is often described as the Italy of Siberia on account of its rich vegetation. The Lena is navigated by steamers from Verkholsensk (200 miles N. of Irkutsk) to its mouth—large quantities of corn and various goods being shipped to the gold-mines of the Olekma; smaller steamers also navigate the
Vitim. On the Amur forty-five steamers (2800 horse-power) ply for a distance of 2000 miles, from Sryetensk in Transbaikalia to its mouth; while its tributary, the Usuri, permits steamers to approach within 100 miles of Vladivostok.
Overland communication is maintained by means of post-stations between all the chief towns—the great highway from Russia to the Pacific passing through Tiumen, Omsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Tchita, Blagoveshchensk, and Khabarovka, the capitals of all the southern provinces. Communication remains, however, difficult along the Shilka and the Amur, where long distances have to be traversed on horseback, especially when ice is drifting on the river before it is frozen, or when it is about to thaw. Two lines of railway already enter Siberia from the west—the line Perm to Tiumen, not yet connected with the other Russian railways, and the line Ufa to Tchelyabinsk (or Cheliabinsk), which joins at Samara the railway-net of European Russia. The new trans-Siberian railway, the greatest railway enterprise in the world, is a continuation of the latter, and is being built in sections. Commenced in 1891, in 1900 through communication to Vladivostok was established as follows: from Cheliabinsk, the first station in Siberia, viâ Omsk and Tomsk to Irkutsk, crossing Lake Baikal on steamers carrying the whole train, thence to Stretensk on the Shilka, a tributary of the Amur, a total distance of 2762 miles; from Stretensk on steamer on the rivers Shilka and Amur to Khabarovka (1443 miles), and thence by rail to Vladivostok (485½ miles), the whole journey taking about 17 days. A railway round Lake Baikal is under construction. By concession from China in 1896 a deviation was arranged through Manchuria by Mukden to Port Arthur, thus securing an ice-free port in the China Sea. The total cost is estimated to approach 52 or 53 millions sterling.
Climate.—Siberia fully deserves its reputation of being the coldest country of the world; but its summer is warm. Beyond 60° N. the July average temperature is less than 60°; in moderate latitudes July has an average of 61°–67°, and 69° on the Middle Amur. The hot summer and a cloudless, bright sky favour vegetation, and melons are grown in the open air on the steppes of Minusinsk and Irkutsk, and barley which has been sown in May about Yakutsk (62° 2' N. lat.) ripens by the end of August. But the summer is short, as a rule, and cold weather sets in very rapidly. Night frosts are usual in September, and in November all rivers are frozen; even the Baikal becomes a highway for sledges in January. In November, even in South Siberia, the mercury of the thermometer is occasionally frozen, and in December and January it remains frozen for weeks. The spring begins in April or May, according to the latitude, and is very pleasant, though it still freezes hard at night; but in the second half of May, when all fruit-trees are in full blossom, there is a sudden return of cold which prevents apples and pears from being grown in Siberia. In the far north the cold is really terrible, and Verkhoyansk, although its latitude is only 67° 34' N., is the cold pole of the eastern part of the northern hemisphere. Temperatures as low as – 75° and – 85° F. have been measured at Verkhoyansk and Yakutsk. Man certainly could not stand such low temperatures, were it not for the dryness of the atmosphere and the absence of wind during the great frosts, which render them more supportable than might be supposed. Not so with the snowstorms, which are frequent by the end of the winter, and are most dangerous to both man and cattle.
Population.—The population of Siberia is very unequally distributed over the territory. As already mentioned, there are from 20 to 40 inhabitants to the square mile in parts of South Tomsk and Tobolsk, while the deserts of the far north are almost uninhabited. The total population of Siberia, which was less than 1 million at the beginning of the 19th century, had in 1897 attained 5,727,090, and it is yearly increased by some 50,000 new immigrants coming from Russia; so that in western Siberia a want of free land available for agriculture is already felt by the new-comers. The Russians in Siberia proper already number more than 3,800,000. They occupy the best parts of the territory in the south, as well as the valleys of the chief rivers. The indigenous population, barbarously exterminated by the Turkish and Mongolian conquerors of the country in the 12th and 13th centuries, and by the Russian conquerors in the 17th and 18th centuries, hardly numbers now 700,000; whole tribes have almost entirely disappeared. The natives belong to various stocks: the Ugrian stock is represented by the Voguls, the Ostiaks, and the Samoyedes on the slopes of the Urals. Various small stems of Turkish origin inhabit the slopes of the Altai and Sayan mountains; they number about 80,000; while the Yakuts, belonging to the same stock, number no less than 200,000. The Mongolian race is represented by the Kalmucks (about 20,000 in the Altai), the Buriats (250,000) around Lake Baikal, and the Tunguses (about 50,000), who lead a nomad existence in the mountains of East Siberia and the Amur region. Nearly 15,000 Manchurians and Chinese continue to stay on Russian territory of the Amur and Usuri; and more than 3000 Coreans are settled around the Gulf of Peter the Great. Finally, in the north-east there are several stems usually described as Hyperboreans and akin to the Eskimos: the Tchukcheis (12,000), the Koryaks (5000), and the Kamchadales (3000). On the Lower Amur we find the Ghilyaks (about 5000), and in the island of Saghalien the Ainos (3000). The condition of the aborigines is altogether precarious; their hunting and grazing grounds are constantly invaded by Russian settlers, and they themselves become an easy prey to the traders, who enslave them by means of loans of food, gunpowder, &c. The numbers of most of them, save the Yakuts and the Buriats, are declining, and some stems will soon totally disappear—a fact which is much to be regretted, because their children, when they have received education in Russian schools, generally prove to be useful workers in various branches of science and art. As to the Russians in Siberia, the old stock of early settlers, chiefly of North Russian origin, differ a good deal from the bulk of the Great Russians. Not having known serfdom (only 8000 peasants in West Siberia and 20,000 peasants who belonged to the emperor's mines in East Siberia were serfs in 1861), they are of a more independent spirit; but these descendants of the Novgorodian traders also are much more individualistic and almost devoid of poetical gifts, though very successful as a rule in exact sciences. The chemist Mendeleyeff, the historian Schapoff, the zoologist Polyakoff, and several other men of mark are of Siberian extraction. On the outskirts of the continent the Russians, especially during the first centuries of the conquest, underwent a good deal of mixture with the aborigines—Samoyedes, Ostiaks, Buriats, and Yakuts.
A great variety of religions are met with in Siberia. The Russians belong chiefly to the Greek Orthodox faith, or rather to some of the nonconformist sects, the very making of Siberia being due to the emigration of dissenters persecuted by government in their mother-country, as well as to the runaway serfs, and at a later epoch, to the desire of avoiding military service. Most Turkish tribes profess the Mohammedan faith, which is steadily winning new converts. The Buriats profess Buddhism; and most Ugrian and Finnish stems, as well as the Hyperboreans, are Shamanists. Christianity is making but very slow and nominal progress.
Exiles.—The rapid increase of population which has taken place in the last quarter of the 19th century is chiefly due to free immigration. As to the exiles, of whom no less than a million have been transported to Siberia since 1840, and who are transported now to the number of 20,000 every year, they have contributed but little to the increase of the settled population. After having been kept for a number of years in prisons in complete idleness, and spent a couple of years on the journey, large parts of which are still made on foot, they are quite unable to become regular agriculturists. They look upon Russia as their mother-country, and very many of them make an attempt to return to their native villages. They run away, wander on foot through the forests, and, after having been re-arrested and brought back to their settlements, they repeat again and again the attempt on the next opportunity. Others join the ranks of the floating population, and perish in numbers on long pedestrian journeys to and from the gold-mines.
Agriculture, Industry.—Agriculture and cattle-breeding are the chief occupations. The regions of Tomsk, South Tobolsk, Minusinsk, Irkutsk, and Middle Amur produce more corn than is wanted for the population, and export some. It may be taken that the annual production of all sorts of corn (summer wheat, rye, oats, and barley) in an average year amounts to or exceeds 7,000,000 quarters in West Siberia, and 4,500,000 quarters in East Siberia. Cattle-breeding is extensively carried on, especially in the steppes of the east. It is roughly estimated that there are about 2,000,000 horses, 1,500,000 head of horned cattle, 3,000,000 sheep, and 100,000 reindeer in West Siberia, and about 850,000 horses, 1,100,000 horned cattle, 1,120,000 sheep, and 50,000 reindeer in East Siberia. Hunting continues to be profitable in some parts of the territory, notwithstanding the reckless extermination of wild animals and burning of forests which have been going on for three hundred years. Sables, Arctic foxes, and gray foxes become rare; so that squirrels, common foxes, bears, deer, and antelopes, as also some ermines and a few beavers in the north-east, are the chief object of the hunter. Even the sables which were so numerous on the Amur when the Russians first occupied it are rapidly being exterminated. Fishing is extensively carried on on Lake Baikal, the Amur, the Obi, and other rivers. Industry is in its childhood. With the exception of the Tiumen region, where some carpets are woven in the peasants' houses, and a few domestic trades are resorted to in the winter, the Russians in Siberia do not carry on the domestic industries so characteristic of middle Russia. In Transbaikalia the want of the simplest technical knowledge is simply astonishing. Therefore, although Siberia has all the raw produce that may be wanted for the development of a prosperous industrial activity, the want of technical skill prevents the growth of industries. It must also be said that the prospects of a sudden enrichment in the lottery of gold-mining diverts the attention of the population and the few capitalists from the surer industrial pursuits, and that the first steps in that direction are beset with difficulties in a country devoid of railways, domestic industries, and technical schools. Yet the influence of the mining and industrial centres of the Urals is already felt in West Siberia. Tiumen has its establishments in which steamers provided with all modern fittings are built with full success.
Although Siberia is very rich in all kinds of ores, the same causes prevent the development of rational mining, which still remains chiefly limited to gold-washing, very primitive in most cases, and only here and there supplied with modern machinery. The production of gold is considerable. In the period 1860-90 no less than from 404 to 584 cwt. of gold annually were obtained in East Siberia, and 48 cwt. in West Siberia, exclusive of Perm. In 1888 the figures of extraction of gold were: Tomsk, 43 cwt.; Yeniseisk and Irkutsk, 98; Transbaikalia, 56; Yakutsk, 149; Amur, 125. Silver is extracted in the Altai to the amount of from 130 to 300 cwt. every year; lead, 3250 cwt. in the Altai, and 232 cwt. in Nertchinsk; copper, 5800 to 7740 cwt. in Altai; iron, 97,000 to 130,000 cwt., to which the considerable production of the ironworks of the eastern slope of the Urals ought to be added.
Education still stands at a very low level, the total numbers of pupils in schools throughout Siberia hardly exceeding 60,000 boys and girls. A university has been opened at Tomsk (1888), after much opposition on behalf of the government, but it has only two faculties, medical and juridical. In the chief towns of each province there are gymnasia in which some education on classical lines is given, but primary and technical education is in great neglect. The technical society of Irkutsk has, however, made some progress in the latter direction. The geographical societies at Omsk and at Irkutsk are known for their scientific publications. Natural science and anthropological museums have been opened of late by some exiles, and those of Irkutsk, Minusinsk, and Yeniseisk contain valuable collections.
History.—The earliest history of Siberia is still imperfectly known, and the numberless tumuli scattered over its surface only begin to be scientifically explored. The earliest inhabitants seem to have belonged to a stock different from the Ural-Altaians, and are described by Radloff as Yeniseians. They were followed by the Ugro-Samoyedes, whose bronze ornaments buried in the tumuli testify to a high pitch of artistic skill. They were subdued in the 11th century by Turkish invaders, who themselves were conquered, two centuries later, by the Mongols. The latter swept away the previous civilisation. The Russians, who vaguely knew Siberia since the 11th century through the Novgorodian merchants, began the conquest of the territory in 1580, when a band of Cossack robbers under Yermak subdued the Tartars on the Tobol River. New and new bands of Cossacks, traders, and hunters, supported by the Moscow government and followed by dissenters flying from religious persecution and peasants escaping from serfdom, poured into Siberia during the next two centuries. The Cossacks took possession of the country, and reached the coasts of the Sea of Okhotsk within the first eighty years after Yermak's expedition. In 1643-50 they also took possession of the Amur, but were compelled by the Chinese to abandon their settlements and forts (1689). The estuary of the Amur was discovered in 1849, and a military post established at the mouth of the river in 1851. The left bank of the Amur and the right bank of the Usuri were annexed in 1853-57; a chain of villages was built along both rivers, and the 'accomplished fact' was recognised in China in 1857 and 1860. The Behring Strait was discovered in 1648 by the Cossack Dejneff, who sailed that year around the north-eastern extremity of Asia; but the fact remained unknown, and the scientific discovery of the passage between Asia and America belongs to Behring. The first circumnavigation of Asia was, however, not accomplished till 1878-79, when Nordenskiöld, on board the Vega, sailed through the Arctic Ocean, wintered on the Siberian coast, entered next spring the Behring Strait, and returned to Sweden via the Japanese and Chinese Seas, the Indian Ocean, and the Suez Canal.
The Géographie Universelle of Élisée Reclus, vol. vi. (English trans. by Professor Keane), is the best source of general information in English. See also Ravenstein's Russians on the Amur (1861); Seebohm's Siberia in Asia (1882); Lansdell's Through Siberia (1882); Kennan's Tent Life in Siberia (New York, 1870), and Siberia and the Exile System (1891); Radloff's Aus Sibirien (1884), and other works; H. de Windt, Siberia as It is (1891); J. Y. Simpson, Side-Lights on Siberia (1898). Of numberless Russian works, see 'Picturesque Russia,' by various writers, and Yadrintseff on 'Siberia as a Colony' (German trans. 1886).