Planet Rus

In a galaxy far, far away there is a planet, a whole world with strange and harsh conditions. Here is a small fact-sheet about this planet:

• Normal state of water most of the year: solid – ice and snow.
• Average annual temperature: approx. -5.5°C (~22°F, well below the freezing point, see [2])
• Average January temperature: starting at -4°C and going well below (~25 °F, again, below the freezing point)
• Survival: most of the year special protective means are required
• January life expectancy without protective means: 10-30 minutes
• Population: Originally humans of various ethnic and racial origin (Slavic. Ugric, Germanic, Turkish, Semitic), carefully mixed together and evolved to fit the harsh conditions

Actually, it’s our galaxy. It’s even our solar system. Well, in fact, it’s our planet. Not the whole planet, only the part called Russia.

We all know that Russia is a cold country. But do we understand how cold is it? Let’s check.

What is the coldest country in Europe that you can think of? Probably, Finland. When you think of Finland the imagination draws frozen plains of Lapland guarding the castle of the Snow Queen from Hans-Christian Andersen fairy tales and frosted bottles of Finlandia Vodka coming from the land of snow. Well, the average annual temperature in Finland (including Lapland and the castle of the Snow Queen) is about +1.5°C, in Russia it is –5.5°C (that is MINUS 5.5°C.) See my point? By the way, Finland was part of Russia before XX Century.

Ok, may be in North America? What’s the coldest country in North America? Canada. Let’s see, the average annual temperature in (two numbers reflect discrepancies between sources):

• Moscow: somewhere between +3.8°C and +4.2°C.
• St.Petersburg/Leningrad: between +4.0°C and +4.3°C
• Vancouver: 9.8°C
• Montreal: between 6.7°C and 6.3 °C

You see, North American continent is much smaller than Eurasia and hence the climate is softened with the oceans. Of course, there is Alaska. Oops, historically it was part Russia too. And, anyway, it’s warmer that Russian Chukotka right across the channel between the continents. When Russian Cossacks discovered Alaska they followed pointers from the local population about “the land with large trees”. There was no large trees where Cossacks came from – the most North-Eastern part of Russia.

It may sound strange, but when considering Europe, you should keep in mind Gulfstream – the warm current in Atlantic Ocean. Because of it, isotherms – the lines of equal average temperature – go vertically from North to South, not horizontally as people normally expect. It’s not “the more to North, the colder”, it’s “the more to East, the colder.” See the following picture borrowed from [3]:

If you are still not convinced, here is the table of the average January temperature in a number of cities around the world ordered from coldest to warmest (based on [1]):

Average January Temperature (°C)

Amazing. The whole top of the table is occupied with Russian cities with only two exceptions:

1. Antarctica – that’s uninhabitable continent around the South pole with a climate about the same as a Martian tropical summer – is colder. Not a big surprise, right? And, it’s just 2 degrees Celsius colder than the coldest Russian city in the table…
2. Somewhere at the bottom among the warmest Russian cities is Anchorage, Alaska. Well, did I mentioned that it was part of Russia before? Probably, for a reason. By the way, it’s original name in the Russian Empire was Sitka.

An average January temperature is important because it tells, what life have to survive to live there. Not just humans, any life. Grain, fruit trees, berry bushes, fish in rivers, pray in woods… You may have a perfect weather 364 days in a year, but it’s not much of a help, if you die on 365th day. And neither it is if everything you eat, dies at that day.

There is another important factor – an average annual temperature. This number tells how much you have spend on warming your houses, how more of your crop you get from the same land, how much more you have to eat to merely warm up your own body. Even a single degree is noticeable economically. For example, productivity of crops in Canada is about 20 centners / hectare; for England, Holland and Sweden it’s much higher – 70 to 80 centners / hectare. That’s what the difference in annual average temperature does. Here is the table of average annual temperatures for the same cities, check it.

Amazing, isn’t it? It’s practically the same picture. Well, there are a couple of Finnish and Norwegian cities in the mix, the rest is Russian again. Except, of course, again, the Antarctica :-).

What I am saying is that while Russia may look like a country, it really is not. It’s a place with different natural conditions that dictate different economical and social laws. Look at the numbers above: the coldest Russian city in the table is just two degrees warmer than Antarctica, and Antarctica in July is about the same as Mars in summer in, say, Gusev Crater (see [4]). That’s not a country, that’s a different world.

We often think about Russia as a country, but normal country is different. Usually, you have some natural barrier to entry – a river, mountain ridge, an ocean or channel. Once you crossed this natural barrier with sufficient military force, you are in all the way, ready to settle and reap the fruits of your victories. Not in Russia. If you will look at the border of Russia in Europe, you will not notice any natural barriers – no mountain ridges, no major rivers… But make no mistake, they are there. It’s an invisible line called an isotherm. You cross it and, in contrast to other natural barriers, it’s only beginning. The more you get into Russia, the tougher the barrier becomes. It’s not a barrier that separates one nice place from another, the whole land is that barrier.

To see it visually, imagine that you are a barbarian chieftain besieging a city hiding behind stone walls… only once you get through them, you don’t find a city for a grab, you find a new set of walls, even higher… and a new one… and a new one… The whole city all just one set of stone walls behind others, like city-fortress Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings. Do you remember this city from the movie where Aragorn got crowned in the end with the circles of fortified walls growing behind each other and going to the clouds? Now imagine a whole country built this way. That’s Russia.

And when I speak about different social and economical laws, that’s not a figure of speech. For example, Russia has inside something similar to European, Asian, African or American countries. That is, arbitrary pieces of land separated with natural barriers easy to defend. In a sense, they even act as separate countries. Only, they have a single common government, they use the same currency, people cross these barriers all the time freely. Not because of oppression, but for the same reason a bunch of kittens draw close together on a cold night. You see, if there were kittens who didn’t, they did not survived the evolution. Neither did those who did not complied to the social and economic laws on the part of Earth that we call Russia. No oppression, Mother Nature took care of them.

And that’s just one example when rules and laws applicable everywhere else don’t work in Russia. Now you know the reason. These laws and rules were for Earth, not for other worlds.

[1] World Climate: average temperatures around the world, http://www.worldclimate.com
[2] Pashkov A.P. Why Russia is not America (in Russian)
[3] Atlas of Officer – Moscow, Voenizdat, 1978
[4] http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2681.html

Chapter title image: artistic representation based on NASA images.