Unit 5 Assignments - Russia and the Russian Republics

updated 11/2/07
Assignments by Class Day
  Date Assignments
Monday  Worksheets - Disappearing Aral Sea - in class
Tuesday

 Chapter 15 notes due (there will be no lecture/discussion over Chapter 15)
Wednesday 3/26

Russian History Worksheet- in class

Russian History Timeline Worksheet

Thursday 3/27

Central Asia/Fergana Valley - (in class)

 
Friday 3/28

Map Quiz - Landforms  

Worksheet - Aral Sea
Monday 3/31

 Worksheet - "Who Are the People..." (in class)

Worksheet - Vladimir Putin

Tuesday 4/1

Map Quiz - Countries and Capitals

Worksheet - Political Uncertainty

Worksheet - Conflict

Turn in Unit 5 Worksheet Packet

Wednesday 4/2

DBQ - Chechnya

District CBA
Thursday 4/3   1st and 2nd period Mid-Term Exam
Friday 4/4 3rd and 4th period Mid-Term Exam - noon dismissal 
Monday  4/7  
Tuesday  4/8  Unit 5 Test
Wednesday    
Thursday    
Friday    

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Map Quiz 1 - Landforms (20)

1. Northern European Plain

2. Ural Mountains

3. West Siberian Plain

4. Central Siberian Plateau

5. Volga River

6. Black Sea

7. Caspian Sea

8. Aral Sea

9. Lake Baikal

10. Turan Plain

11. Kara Kum Desert

12. Kyzyl Kum Desert

13. Amu Darya River

14. Syr Darya River

15. Arctic Ocean

16. Pacific Ocean

17. Kamchatka Peninsula

18. Sea of Okhotsk

19. Baltic Sea

20. Barents Sea

21. Caucasus Mountains

 

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Map Quiz 2 - Countries and Capitals (15)

1. Yerevan, Armenia

2. Baku, Azerbaijan

3. Minsk, Belarus

4. Tallinn, Estonia

5. Tbilisi, Georgia

6. Astana, Kazakhstan

7. Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

8. Riga, Latvia

9. Vilnius, Lithuania

10. Chisinau, Moldova

11. Moscow, Russia

12. Dushanbe, Tajikistan

13. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

14. Kiev, Ukraine

15. Tashkent, Uzbekistan

16. St. Petersburg, Russia

 

Vocabulary Quiz (25)

1. continentality

2. taiga

3. tundra

4. chernozem

5. thermal pollution

6. permafrost

7. Scandinavia

8. czar

9. serfs

10. westernization

11. Russification

12. U.S.S.R.

13. capitalist

14. communist

15. command economy

16. market economy

17. collectives

18. Cold War

19. glasnost

20. perestroika

21. terrorists

22. refugees

23. privatization

24. vouchers

25. distance decay

 

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Central Asia and the Fergana Valley - from Holt “World Geography Today” TEKS – 1A, 5A, 8A-B, 9A-B, 10C, 11B, 12B-C, 13B, 14A-B, 15A-B, 18A, 21A, 21C, 22B

Region? – Functional, Formal, or Perceptual
The Fragmented Fergana Valley
The Fergana Valley, about 300 kilometers long and 80 kilometers wide, is Central Asia’s biggest oasis. It is surrounded by the Tian Shan mountains to the northeast and the Pamir Alay mountains to the southeast. Numerous streams rise in these mountains and flow down to the Fergana Valley where they come together to form the Syr Dar’ya. The Syr Dar’ya flows westward, exiting the valley where it narrows near the city of Khudzhand. In the mountains, the headwaters of the Syr Dar’ya generate hydroelectricity, and in the valley, its waters make possible irrigated agriculture. Today, it is a valley torn asunder by conflicting interests.
The Fergana Valley today is shared among three countries: Uzbekistan (which controls about 60 percent of it), Tajikistan (25%), and Kyrgyzstan(15%). The three Fergana Valley provinces in Uzbekistan (Andijan, Fergana, and Namangan) have 6.2 million people. Parts of Kyrgyzstan’s Osh and Jalal-Abad provinces are also in the valley, as is part of Tajikistan’s Leninabad province adding 4.2 million people, although some of them live in the surrounding mountains. The valley, therefore, represents an important concentration of people and economic production for each of the three countries.
Under the Russians, Kazakhstan became a frontier settlement zone for pioneering Russians and Ukranians. Much of the rest of Central Asia became a vast irrigated cotton plantation, following Russia’s loss of American cotton supplies after the U.S. Civil War. Under the Soviets, the policy of regional economic specialization intensified, and Uzbekistan in particular saw its best lands degraded through the relentless production of cotton. The emphasis on cotton and mineral production, including oil and natural gas, in Central Asia made the region something of an internal colony. Most finished goods were imported by Central Asia from elsewhere in the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union broke apart in 1989, the five Central Asian republics inherited economies designed as parts of a much larger whole, not ones meant to stand alone.
Another key legacy of the Soviet era is the political geography of Central Asia. The Soviets divided the region up into five republics (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan). This Soviet strategy was in part a means of countering Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism. Pan-Islamism refers to efforts to unite all Muslims. Pan-Turkism refers to efforts to unify all Turkish peoples. The Soviets perceived these movements as threats.
The political boundaries drawn by the Soviets are particularly convoluted in the Fergana Valley. They cross and recross rivers, canals, roads, railroads, pipelines, and power lines. When the Central Asian republics were part of the Soviet Union, the boundaries did not much matter. Now that they are international borders, they are a challenge to efficient spatial interaction and economic development.
Traditional bases of identity in Central Asia were clan, dynasty, religion, and territory. The ideas of national identity and of nation-state were introduced by the Russians. The Russians created not only Uzbekistan, but Uzbeks, not only Kyrgyzstan, by Kyrgyz, and so on. The Russians followed the dictum, “divide and conquer” by encouraging the development of distinctive languages and literatures. They further complicated the future of the region by drawing its political boundaries so that they did not correspond with the distribution of the emerging national groups. Such would have been an impossible task in any case, as the groups lived intermixed. Every country in the region today has sizable minorities whose ethnicity is that of the majority population in neighboring countries.
Economic conditions in the Fergana Valley have become nightmarish since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of the Central Asian nations. Some international aid organizations estimate that the Fergana Valley’s rate of unemployment is 80 percent. Many factories and other businesses have closed. Electricity is available for only four hours a day. The farming sector is in trouble, in part because of losses of soil fertility brought about by decades of unsustainable irrigation agriculture. The Soviet-built education and health-care systems are failing. Black markets, organized crime, narcotics production and trade, and the corruption of public officials are major problems. Land, water, and job shortages are worsened by rapid population growth in the region.
Economic strains are intensified by the different paths taken by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan since independence. Kyrgyzstan has moved rapidly toward a market economy, while the others have not. The once integrated economy of the Fergana Valley has been further fractured by the emergence of three separate national currencies and by controlled borders.
The severe economic conditions in the Fergana Valley have led to violent conflict. Some of this has taken on an ethnic flavor; for example, the rioting of ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, in 1990 over land, housing, jobs, and political power.
In other cases, the conflict has a religious dimension. Islam is resurgent in Central Asia, following decades of repression by the officially atheist Soviets. Today, the Fergana Valley has Central Asia’s largest concentration of practicing Muslims. The most well-organized opposition to the existing governments in Central Asia is Islamic. The strongest of these groups, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), may be turning into a pan-Central Asian cause, and the armies of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan all are involved in fighting the IMU. In the Fergana Valley, there are also conflicts within Islam. Will local variants of Islam, with their traditions of local pilgrimages, survive in the face of more standardized versions imported from abroad?
One of the most destructive results of the unrest is that is has deepened the suspicion among the three countries that share the Fergana Valley. They accuse on another of plotting with or sheltering their enemies. They withhold resources from one another. For example, in the winter of 2000-2001, Uzbekistan withheld gas supplies from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in part to pressure them to act more aggressively against the IMU. Uzbekistan also land-mined its borders with Kyrgyzstan, separating families and villages and suppressing trade.

  
  “The Disappearing Aral Sea” by Kenneth D. Frederick; Copied with permission from Resources 102 (Winter 1991). Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.
One of the world’s largest lakes, the Aral Sea in the [former] Soviet Union is now the site of one of the world’s greatest ecological disasters. Conversion of the area around the sea to cotton production has resulted in contamination of water by pesticides and in large water diversions from the rivers that feed the Aral for irrigation. Effects on the region’s ecosystem and on human health have been devastating, and plans to increase water supplies to the Aral might create severe ecological problems elsewhere. Fundamental changes in the institutions that now distort incentives to efficiently manage water resources are required.
For most of the last ten thousand years, the waters of the Amu Dar’ya and the Syr Dar’ya rivers have flowed through the deserts of south central Soviet Asia to the Aral Sea—actually a lake having no outlet. Formed in the high mountains to the southeast of the Aral, these rivers have a combined average annual flow of 90 million acre cubic feet (maf). (In comparison, the Colorado River,…has about 13.5 maf.) Until around 1960, about half of this water replenished the Aral Sea [made it to the sea]; the rest evaporated, transpired, or filtrated into the ground either naturally as the rivers flowed through the deserts and their deltas or as a result of diversions for irrigation and other human uses….
The region’s relatively flat topography and easily tilled soils are conducive to [farming]….By 1900, more than 7.4 million acres were irrigated….The level fluctuated less than 1 meter between 1910 and 1960. Increases in the consumptive use of water for irrigation and other uses up to that time were largely offset by reductions in evaporation, transpiration and filtration from the rivers and their deltas.
Over the last three decades, however, the balance that had maintained the level of the Aral Sea has broken down under a relentless drive to expand cotton production in the area around the sea. The Karakum Canal, for which construction started in 1954 and now extends 1,300 km westward from the Amu Dar’ya, was a centerpiece of Soviet plans to expand cotton production in the central Asian republics. Diversions of water to this canal along, all of which were lost to the Aral, rose from 1 cubic kilometer in 1956 to 14 cubic kilometers in 1987. By 1987, aggregate diversions through the Karakum Canal totaled 225 cubic kilometers, equivalent to 60% of the water currently stored in the Aral Sea….
The low levels of inflows to and the increasing salinity of the Aral Sea are having devastating impacts not only on the sea but on the people once dependent on its rich productive system. Just three decades ago the sea supported an important fishing industry; in 1957 Muynak and Aral’sk were thriving ports processing a commercial catch that total 48,000 metric tons of fish. It has been seven years since the last commercial catch was taken from the Aral Sea. Muynak and Aral’sk now lie many kilometers from the sea’s edge…. By the early 1980’s, 20 of the seas 24 fish species had disappeared….
Ecological and Health Effects – Soviet planners recognized that their efforts to expand irrigation would adversely impact the Aral Sea. They failed, however, to anticipate other consequences of their action that have precipitated one of the greatest ecological disasters in history. Expansion of irrigation and the recession of the Aral Sea have resulted in huge dust storms, declining agricultural productivity, and sharply rising mortality and morbidity rates. Even the region’s climate is apparently becoming less hospitable to crops and humans.
As the sea recedes, large areas of the former lake bottom have been exposed. The concentration of toxic salts in the upper layer of the exposed seabed and the lack of water and nutrients make it extremely difficult to establish a stabilizing plant cover. Without such cover, dust storms blow up. These storms, which appear to be increasing in frequency and magnitude, transport an estimated 43 million metric tons of salts per year over vast areas, including the area’s irrigated lands. Sodium chloride and sodium sulfate, which are particularly toxic to plants, are among the salt being carried [by the wind] from the former seabed.
High salt levels in the region’s soils and water are also affecting agriculture. Although the soils are naturally saline [salty], if there is adequate drainage, salts can be leached [washed/rinsed] from the soil by applying water in excess of that needed by plants. While the quantities of water applied to crops in the area are well in excess of crop requirements, the drainage is often very poor. Consequently, excess water, which is much more saline than the irrigation water applied, accumulates and raises the level of the groundwater table. As the water table rises into the root zone, the crops suffer from curtailed oxygen supplies. Moreover, capillary action draws salts from the shallow groundwater tables upward toward the surface. As the water evaporates, high concentrations of salt are left near the surface, largely destroying the agricultural potential of the land. Soviet research suggests that 60% of the irrigated soils in Uzbekistan, 80% in Turkmenistan, 35% in Tadzhikistan, 40% in Kirghizia, and between 60 and 70% in Kazakhstan suffered moderate to strong salinity problems in 1985.
Increasing salinity is an important factor in the recent decline in cotton yields. Reported average cotton yields in the five central Asian republics declined from 2,840 kilos (k) per hectare for the period 1976-1980, to 2,610 k for 1981-1985, to 2,400 k in 1986, and 2,300 k in 1987. Despite efforts to boost yields by increasing the amount of fertilizer applied, yields in 1987 had dropped to 81% of the average annual yield for the years 1976 through 1980. In 1987, 7% less cotton was produced on 15% more land compared with the 1976-1980 averages.
Perhaps the greatest sacrifices associated with the development of cotton have involved the health of the area’s population. Drinking water supplies, especially in the lower reaches of the river basins, are contaminated by pesticides used in cotton production and by high salt concentrations. Pesticides have even been detected in mothers’ milk. The deterioration of health conditions is evident in statistics: over the last fifteen years, the incidence of typhoid fever increased almost 30 times, hepatitis increased 7 times, and kidney disease, gallstone ailments, and chronic gastritis have all increased markedly. The incidence of cancer of the esophagus is 50 times the world average, and tuberculosis has reached epidemic rates. Infant mortality is more than 50 per 1,000 in the region as a whole, more than twice the reported rate of 23 per 1,000 for the Soviet Union. In one region of the Karakalpak Republic, located in the lower reaches of the Amu Dar’ya, child mortality is 110 per 1,000. One survey found 80% of the women suffering from anemia and 70% of the children ill.
As the Aral Sea recedes, the climate of the surrounding region is also being affected. Large water bodies have a moderating effect on the neighboring climate. Studies indicate that the decline in the size of the Aral Sea has been accompanied by more extreme temperatures—summers have become hotter, winters colder, and growing seasons shorter. Average May temperatures at Kungrad, currently located about 100 km south of the Aral in the Amy Dar’ya Basin, were 3.0 to 3.2 degrees Celsius higher during the 1960-1981 period than during the previous 25 years. October temperatures, on the other hand, were 0.7 to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher during the more resent period. The growing season, the period between the last spring frost and the first fall frost, declined by ten days in the northern reaches of the Amy Dar’ya Basin.
Proposed Solutions – …International Symposium…Improving the quantity and quality of potable [drinkable] water supplies and restricting the use of pesticides and fertilizers in the region are among the priorities of these Soviet scientists for improving health conditions there. Drinking water supplies in Nukus and Muynak should improve when a 200 km pipeline, to cost an estimated $350 million, is completed. The pipeline will bring water from a reservoir located above the irrigated lands that contribute most of the chemicals to the water.
To this participant in the symposium, an important part of any program to improve the health conditions should be a reduction in the use of pesticides—especially defoliants [removes the leaves] used to facilitate cotton harvesting. Continuous cotton production has depleted soils and encouraged larger chemical applications in a futile effort to maintain yields in the Aral region. Rotation of crops might be one way to maintain yields and reduce the use of agricultural chemicals. Since cotton requires much higher concentrations of pesticides than any other crop, permanently shifting some of the land now in cotton to other crops would also reduce the use of agricultural chemicals.
In their resolution, the scientists at the Aral crisis symposium concluded that ecological restoration of the region is impossible unless the area of the Aral Sea is stabilized. Their proposals for increasing water flows to the sea include the imposition of strict limits on the water diverted by each republic, the introduction of water-conserving techniques in all areas of the economy, limiting the production of rice (a crop that uses particularly large quantities of water), removal of low-yielding land from cultivation, and reassessment of the use of reservoirs and drainage-collection ponds that lose 5 cubic kilometers or more of water annually to evaporation.
The resolution of the scientists was also notable because it did not support many of the costly structural proposals of some of the symposium speakers. One such proposal called for lining the dirt irrigation canals—which often lose 20% or more of their water to filtration—with concrete. This would save water (albeit at a high cost) where the seepage ends up collecting in and evaporating from local depressions and desert lakes; however, in other locations water seeping from an unlined canal may return naturally to the river and to an irrigation system downstream, or to a usable aquifer. Where filtration from canals and high water-application rates are raising groundwater tables and causing water-logging, the conjunctive management of surface and groundwater might reduce salinity problems and improve overall irrigation efficiency. Soviet assessments suggest that groundwater use could be increased by about 10 cubic kilometers annually without reducing river runoff. Detailed knowledge of the region’s surface and groundwater hydrology is needed to target where the lining of canals or other schemes might be useful in improving water-use efficiency.
Some Soviet engineers have proposed increasing water supplies to the Aral Sea through transfers from other basins. Under these proposals, rivers that now flow northward to the Arctic would be reversed so that the water would flow south to the Aral; alternatively, water from the Caspian Sea or the Ural River could be diverted eastward to the Aral Basin. The resolution of the Soviet scientists was criticized as scientifically unfounded. Yet even if the scientific questions were resolved, economic and environmental objections to interbasin transfers would remain. Any transfer large enough to have a significant effect on the Aral Sea would cost many billions of rubles, and the environmental costs on the exporting basin would also likely be high. It is also probable that water could be conserved within the Aral Basin at costs much lower than would be required to bring in new supplies. Moreover, unless fundamental changes are made in the institutions that now distort the incentives to those allocating and managing the water resource, bringing more water into the basin might permit an expansion of the current inefficient and environmentally damaging water-use practices.
Lessons from market economies - …Microeconomic planning and resource allocation by government fiat [order] have rarely been successful, and some of the Soviet Union’s biggest failures have been in the agricultural sector. Dictating what crops to grow and how much, and when water is to be applied, is a proven recipe for low productivity and wasted resources. One of the most persistent lessons to be learned from agricultural studies worldwide is that farmers tend to be efficient managers of their own resources within the context of the incentives, institutional constraints, and technologies by which they operate. Government policy is best directed to changing incentives to better reflect broad social directives and resource scarcities, to removing unnecessary constraints on farmers’ decisions, and to expanding the available technologies rather than attempting to micromanage farms….