Russian Brown Bears

[brotherbear]

Quote: Steppes and Deserts

South and east of the great forests, where the climate is less wet, the trees lose their dominance over the landscape in favour of perennial grasses. This results in another quintessentially Russia habitat - the rolling steppe. The transition is gradual, and on the northern fringes, there is a zone of 'wooded steppe', called because of the presence of a scattering of trees, especially along the water courses, where their roots can tap into moisture. The true steppes are completely open to the sky and are equivalent to the pampas and prairies of America, and the east African savannahs. In Eurasia, they run from the Danube delta in Romania, across the north of the Black and Caspian Seas, through northern Kazakhstan and into Manchuria. To the south, where rainfall is even more meager, they merge into the semi-arid zones and baking hot deserts of Central Asia.

Quote: Land of Contrasts

But the Commonwealth of Independent States is not only a land of tundra, taiga, steppes and deserts. It includes great areas of the Arctic Ocean, and a huge total area of wetlands - probably greater than those of any other country. On the edge of the Pacific, the Kamchatka Peninsula hangs like a scimitar from the far eastern end of the continent. It is born of fire, with 29 active volcanoes looming into the sky. This is also the hunting ground for the biggest of Russian bears.

Brown Bears are found looking for food on the shores of the greatest and deepest freshwater lake in the world - Lake Baikal - which sits in southern Siberia and contains enough water to supply the world's needs for nearly half a century. Likewise, the world's biggest inland seas are situated in the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the greatest of all of these, the Caspian, is the subject of the next stage of this safari. Reply