Mongolia is a country with one of the lowest population density in the world. Fewer than three million people live in an area the size of two France, a million of whom live in the capital.

So it turns out that you can go for a very long time in Mongolia in any direction, and only occasionally meet small clusters of white yurts on the way. Two-thirds of the population live in the steppe and lead a nomadic lifestyle, regularly moving to a new place in search of pastures for livestock.

Cattle breeding, whatever one may say, is a key activity for the steppe inhabitants - it gives them meat, milk (from which, by the way, they have not learned how to cook), wool, skins. Usually in one family there are different types of animals - it can be a herd of sheep and goats, a corral with cows and calves, several horses.

The first time we were visiting a Mongolian family, in a yurt at the beginning of our journey, thanks to people who drove us to their friends. At that time, we had little idea of ​​how nomadic people live, what their way of life is, what a real yurt looks like from the inside.

No matter how trite it may sound, their way of life has practically not changed since ancient times, and even more so since the reign of Genghis Khan. But nevertheless, civilization has reached here too - an energy-saving light bulb, a TV with a satellite dish, a motorcycle or a truck are in almost every yurt.

Horses as a means of transport are still very relevant, because in many places there is no other way to ride on anything, and the herd is convenient to graze. The riders we met did not use saddles. But this is somehow dashing

We were lucky to see the process of putting together a yurt for moving to a new place literally in the very first family in which we found ourselves. In the evening they were still in their places, no fuss and fees. But in the morning by a well-coordinated family team in two hours the yurt was completely disassembled and folded into the back of a truck along with all the things.

There are different yurts in terms of size - they are divided by the number of component parts of the walls (we saw from 4 to 6). You can collect more, there would be a desire.

The basic furnishings in all yurts are the same - in the center there is a stove with a chimney and a table, along the walls there are beds, most often two. There are additional beds on the floor, because often a large family lives in one yurt, and everyone needs to fit.

Many have the same cabinets, probably - traditional design.

The floor is partially or completely covered with pieces of linoleum or carpet, sometimes just earthen parts. They don't take off their shoes in yurts, they walk in street shoes.

Be sure to have a locker or a wall with photographs of all relatives, children, grandchildren. Images of the Dalai Lama are also quite common :)

The doors are low, their heads banged several times. There are no locks, not even bolts, only if the yurt is near a town or village.

They either make a yurt themselves or buy it. Translated into rubles, its cost is about 40,000.

They live, as mentioned above, by animal husbandry, they sell meat and dairy products. Men graze flocks of sheep, cows, yaks, goats or horses. Often the animals graze on their own, in the evening they are herded to the yurts, where they sleep.

There are small pens in which calves or foals are kept, and mothers are brought to them in the morning and in the evening to feed the cubs. After the baby has eaten, the remaining milk is removed.

Women also have something to do :) They make cheese, kefir, sour cream, butter from milk.

In each yurt we saw several basins full of milk at one stage or another of its preparation.

They don't store a lot of meat, they don't keep more than one carcass in a yurt.

Smoke over the stove:

Men in the steppe often wear national clothes - over jeans and a T-shirt. It is convenient - it does not blow out, you can put everything you need in your bosom, and you’re used to it, probably. We have seen men of different ages in such clothes, so these are not remnants of the older generation :)

Women wear it too, but less often. Although a woman's dress has at least one important practical plus - you can go to the toilet in the steppe anywhere. There are no bushes!

Each family keeps several dogs, which should be protected from strangers (this is unlikely, given the absence of locks), and from wolves (a very real threat, sheep are periodically dragged). All the dogs we met barked very loudly, but when we met they turned out to be very cute creatures :)

They do not like cats, even in the city they practically do not give birth. We saw once, in a yurt, a cute well-fed cat with very smooth fur. Still, so much milk!

People are very hospitable, you can safely go into any yurt if something happens, or you just need to ask something. They will help as much as they can, and they will give you tea.

By the way, their tea is completely different - milk, some shavings and salt. Drink hot.

Since I still don't like milk, Roma gets two portions. They also drink kumis, it tastes like milk kvass. In a bite - bread and butter, sprinkled with sugar! As in childhood

Each yurt has arts - dried salted homemade cottage cheese. It whitens teeth very well! They also make sweet - arold. In the first yurt we were presented with a package of Arts and a large jar of homemade butter - we ate it for two weeks :)

There is also such a thing - they remove the top from the basin, in which they make sour cream, and fold it in half. They are eaten with bread.

From what we had a chance to taste - sweet milk rice (my portion went to Roma), soup from horns with meat (horns - for me, meat - not for me :), homemade noodles with meat (similar).

We have heard that Mongols drink a lot. We drank moonshine vodka only once - in the evening in a yurt, in a family circle, in very moderate quantities. They cook themselves from milk, drink it warm.

Plates, in our understanding, are also not seen, they eat from high saucers, they also drink tea from them.

Many products from Russia and Ukraine - familiar labels are found everywhere - Yanta, Alenka, Zolotaya Smechka.

Little is known of the Russian language, even the older generation. That is, it is quite possible to meet a person who speaks Russian, but most likely it will not be the first person you meet, and not even the second.

In general, at first Roma was very psychotic that no one understood him for the first time abroad, he had not yet learned sign language, and sincerely tried to speak with them in Russian, slowing down the pace of speech and clearly pronouncing the words (well, to make it clearer for them)

Apparently his desire was so great that we suddenly quite by accident began to meet people who understood our language and spoke it. Almost everyone who gave us a lift, whom we stayed at, whom we met - Mongols, Poles, French, Americans - all could more or less clearly express themselves in the great and mighty

Separately, I would like to say about children. First, at least two or three give birth, often more. It's good to be a kid in Mongolia!

He has his own steppe, his own horse, his own animals. He is not forced to wash his hands before eating, he is not scolded for torn pants or spilled sugar, any of you "Don't go there, you will fall, Don't go there - they will crush him." He can do whatever he wants. He runs around the steppe all day, rides a bicycle, drives sheep back and forth.

No stress, hassle and sores (good immunity, not spoiled by drugs).

Simple, happy people who do not bother with conventions and do not worry about trifles. They do not need roads and the Internet, they have everything they need.

Traveling along the Mongolian steppe is a great place and an original way to reassess your values ​​and dispel stereotypes imposed by society. We are imbued with, we recommend to everyone!

How do they live in the steppes? Why do people live in the steppes? Can pastoralists live sedentary? What nomadic peoples do you know? What kind of house does a nomad need? What is its functionality? From what material is it easy to build a house for a cattle breeder? Does such a house need furniture? Inhabitants of the steppes create their home from sheep wool. Felt is made of it and carpets are made to turn them into warm walls. Such a house is called a yurt. A felt blanket is wrapped around a light frame made of bound, accordion-stretched wooden lattices and long thin poles that form a vault. Wooden parts are precious, they are taken care of and during transportation are packed in elegant felt cases. A yurt can be assembled in just one hour and transported on one camel. The yurt is decorated with ornaments ... In the center of the yurt there is a hearth, at the top there is a chimney, through which you can see the sky. The door is facing south. Why is a yurt decorated? What do the ornaments that adorn the yurt mean? The entire nomadic settlement was a strictly organized space. It is a circle, separated by beams of roads and streets, with the main large yurt in the center. The main entrance to the settlement is from the south. Kyrgyz yurt. N. Roerich. Mongolia. Yurts.

Slide 13 from presentation "Peoples of the mountains and steppes"... The size of the archive with the presentation is 11898 KB.

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Research materials from the Quaternary period and numerous archaeological finds indicate that people lived in the steppe regions of Eurasia in distant prehistoric times - much earlier than in the forest zone.

Opportunities for prehistoric man to live here were formed on the border of the Neogene and the Quaternary period, that is, about 1 million years ago, when the southern steppes were freed from the sea. Since then and up to the present time, land has been spread over the place of the Ukrainian steppes (Berg, 1952).

In the Lower Volga region, in the layers of the middle part of the so-called Khazar stage of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene, the remains of the elephant trogonteria - the immediate predecessor of the mammoth, horse, modern type, donkey, bison, camel, wolf, fox, saiga - have been found and thoroughly studied. The presence of these animals testifies to the predominantly steppe nature of the fauna belonging to the Dnieper-Valdai interglacial. At least, it has been proven that at this time the steppe fauna occupied the south of Eastern Europe and part of Western Siberia up to 57 ° N. sh., where landscapes with rich herbaceous vegetation prevailed.

The coexistence of prehistoric man and steppe animals in this zone led to the emergence of cattle breeding, which, in the words of F. Engels, became the "main branch of labor" of the steppe tribes. Due to the fact that the pastoral tribes produced more livestock products than others, they "stood out from the rest of the mass of barbarians - this was the first large social division of labor" (K. Marx, F. Engels Soch. Ed. 2. Vol. 21, p. 160).

In the history of the economic development of the steppes, two periods are distinguished - nomadic-cattle-breeding and agricultural. The famous Trypillian culture in the Dnieper region is a reliable monument of the early emergence and development of cattle breeding and agriculture. Archaeological excavations of the tribal settlement of Trypillians dating back to the end of the 5th millennium BC. e., it was established that the Trypillians cultivated wheat, rye, barley, bred pigs, cows, sheep, hunted and fished.

Among the natural conditions favorable for the emergence of animal husbandry and agriculture among the Trypillians, the famous archaeologist A. Ya. Bryusov (3952) names the climate and chernozem soils. According to research by A. Ya. Bryusov, the tribes of the Yamno-Catacomb culture, who lived in the steppes between the Volga and the Dnieper, already in the 3rd millennium BC. h. master cattle breeding and agriculture. In burials of this time, bones of sheep, cows, horses, and millet seeds are widespread.

In the research of A.P. Kruglov and G.E. The Yamnaya culture, the most ancient, was characterized by hunting, fishing and gathering. The next catacomb culture, which received the greatest development in the eastern part of the steppe Black Sea region, was cattle-breeding and agricultural; during the logging culture - the last centuries of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. - pastoral cattle breeding is intensifying even more.

Thus, in search of new sources for life in the steppe, man came to the domestication of valuable species of animals. The steppe landscapes provided a solid foundation for the development of cattle-breeding, which is the main branch of their labor among the local peoples.

Nomadic cattle breeding, developed in the primitive communal tribal system, existed in the steppes from the end of the Bronze Age. This period lasted as long as improved implements made it possible to store fodder for the winter and engage mainly in cattle breeding. But already in the V century. BC NS. the southern Ukrainian steppes are becoming the main source of supplying Athens with bread and raw materials. Animal husbandry is giving way to agriculture. Fruit growing and viticulture emerged. However, agriculture with the creation of settled settlements in the Black Sea steppes in ancient times was of a local nature and did not determine the general picture of nature management in the Eurasian steppes.

The most ancient inhabitants of the Northern Black Sea region were the Scythian peoples. In the VII-II centuries. BC NS. they occupied the territory between the mouths of the Don and the Danube. Several large tribes stood out among the Scythians. Scythians-nomads lived on the right bank of the lower Dnieper and in the steppe Crimea. Between Ingul and the Dnieper, Scythian farmers lived interspersed with nomads. In the basin of the Southern Bug, the Scythians-plowmen lived.

One of the earliest information about the nature of the Eurasian steppes belongs to the geographers of ancient Greece and Rome. The ancient Greeks back in the 6th century. BC NS. came into close contact with the Scythians - the inhabitants of the Black Sea and Azov steppes. As the earliest geographical source, it is customary to refer to the well-known "History of Herodotus" (about 485-425 BC). In the fourth book of "History" the ancient scientist describes Scythia. The land of the Scythians is “flat, abundant in grass and well watered; the number of rivers flowing through Scythia is only slightly less than the number of canals in Egypt ”(Herodotus, 1988, p. 324). Repeatedly Herodotus emphasized the treelessness of the Black Sea steppes. The forests were so small that the Scythians used animal bones instead of firewood. “This whole country, with the exception of Giley, is treeless,” Herodotus argued (p. 312). Gilea, apparently, meant the richest in those days floodplain forests along the Dnieper and other steppe rivers.

Interesting information about Scythia is found in the works of a contemporary of Herodotus - Hippocrates (460-377 BC), who wrote: "The so-called Scythian desert is a plain abounding in grass, but devoid of trees and moderately watered" (quoted from : Latyshev, 1947, p. 296). Hippocrates noted that the Scythian nomads remained in one place for as long as there was enough grass for herds of horses, sheep and cows, and then moved to another section of the steppe. With this method of using steppe vegetation, it was not subjected to destructive livestock slaughter.

In addition to grazing, the Scythian nomads influenced the nature of the steppes with palas, especially on a large scale during the wars. It is known, for example, that when the army of the Persian king Darius (512 BC) moved on the Scythians, they applied the tactics of a devastated land: they drove away cattle, filled up wells and springs, and burned grass.

Since the III century. BC NS. to IV century. n. NS. in the steppes from the river. Tobol in the east to the Danube in the west were settled Iranian-speaking Sarmatian tribes related to the Scythians. The early history of the Sarmatians was associated with the Sauromats, with whom they formed large tribal alliances led by the Roxolans and Alans.

The nature of the Sarmatian economy was determined by nomadic cattle breeding. In the III century. n. NS. the power of the Sarmatians in the Black Sea region was undermined by the East Germanic tribes of the Goths. In the IV century. the Scythian-Sarmatians and the Goths were defeated by the Huns. Part of the Sarmatians, together with the Goths and Huns, participated in the subsequent so-called “great migrations of peoples”. The first of them - the Hunnic invasion - hit Eastern Europe in the 70s. IV century. The Huns are a nomadic people who formed from the Turkic-speaking tribes, Ugrians and Sarmatians in the Urals. The steppes of Eurasia began to serve as a corridor for the Hunnic and subsequent nomadic invasions. The famous historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote that the Huns constantly “wander to different places, as if eternal fugitives ... Having come to a place rich in grass, they arrange their wagons in the form of a circle ... having destroyed all the fodder for livestock, they again carry, so to speak, their cities, located on carts ... They crush everything that comes their way ”(1906-1908, p. 236-243). For about 100 years the Huns made their military campaigns across southern Europe. But having suffered a number of failures in the struggle against the Germanic and Balkan tribes, they gradually disappear as a people.

In the middle of the 5th century. in the steppes of Central Asia (a large tribal union of Avars (Russian chronicles call them images). The Avars were the vanguard of a new wave of invasions of Turkic-speaking peoples to the west, which led to the formation in 552 of the Turkic Kaganate - an early feudal state of steppe nomads, which soon disintegrated into hostile each other, the eastern (in Central Asia) and western (in Central Asia and Kazakhstan) parts.

In the first half of the 7th century. in the Azov and Lower Volga regions, an alliance of the Turkic-speaking proto-Bulgarian tribes was formed, which led to the emergence in 632 of the state of Great Bulgaria. But already in the third quarter of the 7th century. the union of the proto-Bulgarians collapsed under the onslaught of the Khazars - the Khazar Kaganate arose after the collapse of the Western Turkic Kaganate in 650.

By the beginning of the VIII century. the Khazars owned the North Caucasus, the entire Azov region, the Caspian region, the western Black Sea region, as well as steppe and forest-steppe territories from the Urals to the Dnieper. For a long time nomadic cattle breeding continued to be the main form of farming in the Khazar Kaganate. The combination of rich steppe expanses (on the Lower Volga, Don and Black Sea regions) and mountain pastures contributed to the fact that nomadic cattle breeding acquired a distant pasture. Along with cattle breeding among the Khazars, especially in the lower reaches of the Volga, agriculture and gardening began to develop.

The Khazar Kaganate existed for more than three centuries. During his reign in the Trans-Volga steppes, as a result of the mixing of the nomadic Türks with the Sarmatian and Ugro-Finnish tribes, an alliance of tribes called the Pechenegs was formed. Initially, they roamed between the Volga and the Urals, but then, under the pressure of the Oguzes and Kipchaks, they left for the Black Sea steppes, defeating the Hungarians who roamed there. Soon the nomad camps of the Pechenegs occupied the territory from the Volga to the Danube. The Pechenegs as a single people ceased to exist in the XIII-XIV. b., merging partially with the Cumans, Turks, Hungarians, Russians, Byzantines and Mongols.

In the XI century. Polovtsy, or the Kipchaks, a Mongoloid Turkic-speaking people, came from the Trans-Volga region to the southern Russian steppes. The main occupation of the Polovtsians, like their predecessors, was nomadic cattle breeding. Various crafts were widely developed among them. The Polovtsians lived in yurts, and in winter they made camp on the banks of the rivers. As a result of the Tatar-Mongol invasion, part of the Polovtsy became part of the Golden Horde, the other part migrated to Hungary.

For many centuries, the steppe was a repository of nomadic Iranian-speaking, Turkic, and in some places - Mongolian and East Germanic peoples. Only the Slavs were not here. This is evidenced by the fact that in the common Slavic language there are very few words associated with the steppe landscape. The word "steppe" itself appeared in the Russian and Ukrainian languages ​​only in the 17th century. Prior to this, the Slavs called the steppe a field (Wild Field, Zapolnaya River Yaik - Ural), but the word "field" had many other meanings. Such common now steppe Russian names "as" feather grass "," fescue "," tyrsa "," yar "," balka "," yaruga "," korsak "," jerboa "are relatively late borrowings from the Turkic languages.

During the Great Migration of Nations, the steppes of Eastern Europe were largely devastated. The blows inflicted by the Huns and their followers led to a significant decrease in the number of the sedentary population, in some places it completely disappeared for a long time.

With the formation of the Old Russian state with the capital in Kiev (882), the Slavs firmly settled in the forest-steppe and steppe landscapes of Eastern Europe. Separate groups of Eastern Slavs, not constituting compact masses of the population, appeared in the steppe even before the formation of the Old Russian state (for example, in Khazaria, in the lower reaches of the Volga). During the reign of Svyatoslav Igorevich (964-972), the Russians dealt a crushing blow to the hostile Khazar Kaganate. The Kiev possessions spread to the lower reaches of the Don, the North Caucasus, Taman and Eastern Crimea (Korchev-Kerch), where the ancient Russian Tmutarakan principality arose. Rus included the lands of Yases, Kasogs, Obzes - the ancestors of modern Ossetians, Balkars, Circassians, Kabardians, etc. On the Don, near the former village of Tsimlyanskaya, the Russians settled the Khazar fortress Sarkel - the Russian White Vezha.

Inhabiting the steppe regions of Eastern Europe, the Slavs brought here their specific culture, in places assimilating the remnants of the ancient Iranian population, the descendants of the Scythians and Sarmatians, already strongly Turkicized by this time. The presence of the remains of the ancient Iranian population here is evidenced by the preserved Iranian names of the rivers, a kind of Iranian hydronymy, which is visible through the younger Turkic and Slavic layers (Samara, Usmanka, Osmon, Ropshcha, etc.).

In the first half of the 13th century, the Tatar-Mongol hordes fell on the Eurasian steppe up to the Danube plains of Hungary. Their dominion lasted for over two and a half centuries. Constantly making military campaigns to Russia, the Tatars remained typical steppe nomads. So, the chronicler Pimen in 1388 met them across the river. The she-bear (left tributary of the Don): “the Tatar herd of videhom is just a multitude, as though the mind is superior, sheep, goats, oxen, camels, horses ...” (Nikon Chronicle, item IV, p. 162).

For several millennia, the steppe served as an arena for great migrations of peoples, nomads, and military battles. The appearance of steppe landscapes was formed under the strong pressure of human activity: cattle grazing unstable in time and space, burning of vegetation for military purposes, the development of mineral deposits, especially cuprous sandstones, the arrangement of numerous burials in the form of mounds, etc.

Nomadic peoples contributed to the advancement of steppe vegetation to the north. On the flat areas of Europe, Kazakhstan, Siberia, for many centuries, nomadic pastoralists not only came close to the strip of small-leaved and broad-leaved forests, but also had their summer nomad camps in the southern part, destroyed forests and contributed to the advance of steppe vegetation far to the north. So, it is known that Polovtsian nomad camps were near Kharkov and Voronezh, and even along the river. Pron in the Ryazan region. Tatar herds grazed up to the southern stair-steppe.

In dry years, the southern outposts of forest vegetation were filled with hundreds of thousands of livestock, which weakened the biological position of the forest. The cattle, trampling the meadow vegetation, brought with them the seeds of steppe grasses, adapted to trampling. Meadow vegetation gave way to steppe vegetation - the process of steppe formation of meadows, their "otpchakivanie" took place. Typical grass of the southern steppes, resistant to trampling - fescue - moved further and further to the north.

The annual spring and autumn fires set by nomadic and sedentary peoples had a great impact on the life of the steppe. We find evidence of the wide distribution of steppe burns in the past in the works of P.S.Pallas. “Nowadays, the entire steppe from Orenburg almost to the Iletsk fortress has not only dried up, but the Kyrgyz people have burned it naked,” he wrote in his diary in 1769. And in subsequent travels, PS Pallas repeatedly describes the steppe fires: the entire horizon on the northern side of the river. Miass from the fire that lasted for three days in the steppe, a glow ... Such steppe fires are often seen in these countries throughout the last half of April "(Pallas, 1786, p. 19).

The significance of fires in the life of the steppe was noted by an eyewitness to these phenomena, E.A. Eversmann (1840). He wrote: “In the spring, in May, the steppe fires, or actually fallen, are a wonderful sight, in which there is good, there is bad, and harm and benefit. In the evening, when it gets dark, the whole vast horizon, on the flat, flat steppes, is illuminated from all sides by fiery stripes, which are lost in the shimmering distance and even rise, lifted by the refraction of rays, from under the horizon ”(p. 44).

With the help of fires, the steppe nomadic peoples destroyed dense dry grass and stems left over from the fall. In their opinion, the old rags did not allow the young grass to break through and prevented the cattle from getting the greens. “For this reason,” noted ZA Eversmann, “not only nomadic peoples, but also arable people, burn the steppes in early spring, as soon as the snow melts and the weather begins to warm. Last year's grass, or rags, quickly ignites, and the flame flows with the wind, until it finds food for itself ”(1840, p. 45). Observing the consequences of the fires, E. A. Eversmann noted that places not affected by fire hardly germinate with grass, while the burnt areas quickly become covered with luxurious and dense greenery.

E. A. Eversmann is echoed by A. N. Sedelnikov and N. A. Borodin, speaking about the significance of spring fires in the Kazakh steppe: “The steppe after the fires presents a gloomy picture. A black, scorched surface, devoid of all life, is visible everywhere. But not even a week will pass (in good weather), as it will become unrecognizable: winds, old oak and other early plants first turn green with islets, and then cover the steppe everywhere ... Meanwhile, unburned places until summer cannot overcome last year's cover and stand deserted, deprived of green vegetation ”(1903, p. 117).

The benefits of the burns were also seen in the fact that the ash formed at the same time served as an excellent fertilizer for the soil; burning off arable land and fallow lands, the peasant fought against weeds; finally, the fires destroyed harmful insects.

But the harm of burns to forest and shrub vegetation was also obvious, since young shoots burned out to the very root. In the reduction of the forest cover of our steppes, it was the steppe burns that played an important role. In addition, whole villages, grain reserves, haystacks, etc., often suffered from them. A certain amount of damage was inflicted on animals, and first of all on birds nesting in the open steppe. Nevertheless, this ancient, centuries-old custom of the steppe nomads was, in the conditions of extensive cattle breeding, a kind of method for improving wormwood and wormwood-cereal pastures.

The steppe, with its unstable harvests, was the source of new military incursions. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. NS. in the steppes of Eurasia they learned to use horses in military affairs. Large military operations were carried out in the open steppe expanse: Numerous hordes of steppe nomads, who had a good command of the art of equestrian combat, enriched with the military experience of the conquered countries and peoples of Eurasia, actively participated in the formation of the political situation and culture of China, Hindustan, Iran, Western and Central Asia, East and Southern Europe.

On the border of the forest and the steppe, military operations constantly arose between the forest and steppe peoples. In the minds of the Russian people, the word “field” (“steppe”) was invariably associated with the word “war”. Russians and nomads treated the forest and steppe differently. The Russian state tried in every possible way to preserve forests on its southern and southeastern borders, even creating a kind of forest barriers - "zaseki". For military purposes, "fields" were burned out in order to deprive the enemy of rich grassy lands for horses. In turn, the nomads destroyed forests in every possible way, made treeless passages to Russian cities. Fires both in the forests and in the steppe were a constant attribute of military operations on the border of the forest and the steppe. The fires were again covered with meadow vegetation, and a significant part of them with forest.

The steppes also occupy an important place in the history of the Russian people. In the struggle against the steppe nomads in the first centuries of our era, there was a consolidation of the Slavic tribes. Hikes to the steppe contributed to the creation in the VI-VII centuries. ancient Russian tribal unions. Even MV Lomonosov admitted that "among the ancient ancestors of the present Russian people ... the Scythians are not the last part." At the junction of the forest and the steppe, Kievan Rus appeared. Later, the center of the Russian state moved to the forest zone, and the steppe with its indigenous Turkic population was, in the figurative expression of the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, “the historical scourge of Russia” until the 17th century. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the steppes became the place of formation of the Cossacks, which settled in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, Don, Volga, Ural, in the North Caucasus. Somewhat later, Cossack settlements appear in the steppes of Southern Siberia and the Far East.

Steppe landscapes have played an extremely important role in the history of human civilizations. In the interglacial and postglacial periods, the steppe served as a universal source of food resources. The wealth of the steppe nature - fruits, berries, roots, game, fish - saved the ancient man from starvation. Domestication of ungulates became possible in the steppe. Fertile chernozem soils gave rise to agriculture. The Scythians were the first farmers in the steppes of Eurasia. They grew wheat, rye, barley, millet. Being engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding, the inhabitants of the steppes not only fully met their own needs, but also created reserves of plant and livestock products.

The steppe largely contributed to the solution of the transport problems of mankind. According to most researchers, the wheel and the cart are the invention of the steppe peoples. The expanse of the steppe awakened the need for rapid movement; The domestication of the horse became possible only in the steppe, and the idea of ​​the wheel was apparently a gift from the steppe plants "tumbleweed".

For many centuries, people migrated along the steppe corridor stretching from Central Asia to the south of Central Europe, and there was a global cultural exchange between different civilizations. In the burial grounds of nomadic peoples, they find examples of the way of life and art of Egypt, Greece, Assyria, Iran, Byzantium, Urartu, China, India.

Powerful flows of matter and energy move along the steppe corridor to this day. Grain and livestock products, coal, oil, gas, ferrous and non-ferrous metals are mined in steppe landscapes and transported in both latitudinal and longitudinal directions. The world's longest railways and highways and powerful pipelines have been built in an open and accessible landscape. Human migrations along the steppe roads do not stop either. Only in this century, two powerful waves of resettlement swept the steppe zone.

In 1906-1914. 3.3 million people moved from the central regions of Russia and Ukraine to the steppes of the Trans-Urals, Northern Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia. This displacement of the rural population to permanent residence in sparsely populated vacant land was caused by agrarian overpopulation and agrarian crisis.

In 1954-1960. in the steppe zone of the Urals, Siberia, the Far East and Northern Kazakhstan, 41.8 million hectares of virgin and fallow lands were plowed up. For their development, at least 3 million people moved from the densely populated regions of the country to the steppe. Nowadays, the natural resources of steppe landscapes play a decisive role in the economies of Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the Central Black Earth Region, the Volga Region, the South Urals, Kazakhstan, and South Siberia.

Having played an exceptional role in the history of mankind, the steppe was the first of all other types of landscape to find itself on the verge of complete loss of its original appearance and anthropogenization - radical economic restructuring and replacement by agricultural landscapes.

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This video tutorial is intended for independent acquaintance with the topic "Population and economy of the forest-steppe and steppe zones". From the lecture of the teacher, you will learn what features of nature are characteristic of the forest-steppe and steppe zones. Discuss how they affect the population and economy of these regions, how people change and protect them.

Topic: Natural and economic zones of Russia

Lesson: Population and economy of the forest-steppe and steppe zones

The purpose of the lesson: to learn about the features of the nature of the steppes and forest-steppes and how they affect the life and economic activities of people.

Natural zones of forest-steppe and steppes are the most developed and modified natural zones in Russia. Forest-steppe and steppes are distinguished by the most comfortable conditions for human life.

Rice. 1. Map of the comfort of natural conditions ()

Currently, real forest-steppe and steppes can be seen only in reserves, all other territories have been greatly modified by humans and are used mainly for agriculture due to fertile soils.

Rice. 2. Rostov Reserve ()

Representatives of the peoples of the steppe zone - steppe people, led a nomadic lifestyle, were engaged in cattle breeding. The steppe peoples include Kalmyks, Tuvinians, Kazakhs, Buryats, Kazakhs and others.

Steppes are open flat or hilly landscapes where herbs, grasses, flowers grow.

In the steppes and forest-steppe, people are actively engaged in animal husbandry and agriculture. In the steppes, goats and sheep, horses and camels, cattle are bred. Some farms breed fish, fur animals, and poultry.

Rice. 4. Breeding poultry ()

Rice. 5. A flock of sheep in the steppe ()

Famous goats are bred on the Urals in the Orenburg region, their wool is so thin that an Orenburg shawl knitted from this wool can be threaded into a wedding ring. Actually, this is how some people check the authenticity of the Orenburg shawl.

Yaks are bred in Buryatia and the foothills of the Caucasus.

One of the main problems of the steppes and forest-steppes is overgrazing. Animals only eat certain plants, which in turn disappear. In addition, vegetation is trampled under overgrazing.

In the northern part of the steppes and forest-steppes they are engaged in agriculture. The steppes and forest-steppe are the main granaries of Russia; wheat, corn, sunflowers, sugar beets, vegetables and fruits are grown here. For protection from the wind, forest shelter belts are planted around the perimeter of the fields. In some places the steppes are plowed by 85%!

Rice. 6. Sunflowers at sunset ()

Due to the active economic activity of man, many steppe species of plants and animals disappear, the soil loses its fertility, and the soil is polluted with chemical fertilizers. Extraction of minerals (for example, iron ore, coal), road construction, expansion of cities and towns also have a negative impact on the nature of the steppe and forest-steppe zones. Therefore, the steppes and forest-steppe need protection. For this, nature reserves and sanctuaries are being created, activities are being carried out aimed at the rational use of the nature of these landscapes.

Rice. 7. Reserve "Black Lands" ()

The traditional dwelling of the peoples of the steppes is the yurt, which is a wooden frame lined with felt.

Homework

Clause 36.

1. Give examples of human economic activity in the forest-steppe and steppes.

Bibliography

The main

1. Geography of Russia: Textbook. for 8-9 cl. general education. institutions / Ed. A.I. Alekseeva: In 2 books. Book. 1: Nature and people. Grade 8 - 4th ed., Stereotype. - M .: Bustard, 2009 .-- 320 p.

2. Geography of Russia. Nature. 8th grade: textbook. for general education. institutions / I.I. Barinov. - M .: Bustard; Moscow textbooks, 2011 .-- 303 p.

3. Geography. 8th grade: atlas. - 4th ed., Stereotype. - M .: Bustard, DIK, 2013 .-- 48 p.

4. Geography. Russia. Nature and people. 8th grade: Atlas - 7th ed., Revision. - M .: Bustard; DIK Publishing House, 2010 - 56 p.

Encyclopedias, dictionaries, reference books and statistical collections

1. Geography. Modern Illustrated Encyclopedia / A.P. Gorkin - M .: Rosmen-Press, 2006 .-- 624 p.

Literature for preparing for the State Examination and the Unified State Exam

1. Thematic control. Geography. The nature of Russia. Grade 8: study guide. - Moscow: Intellect-Center, 2010 .-- 144 p.

2. Tests in the geography of Russia: grades 8-9: textbooks ed. V.P. Dronova “Geography of Russia. 8-9 grades: textbook. for general education. institutions "/ V.I. Evdokimov. - M .: Publishing house "Examination", 2009. - 109 p.

3. Getting ready for the GIA. Geography. 8th grade. Final testing in the format of an exam. / Author-comp. T.V. Abramov. - Yaroslavl: LLC "Academy of Development", 2011. - 64 p.

4. Tests. Geography. 6-10 grades: Teaching aid / A.A. Letyagin. - M .: OOO "Agency" KRPA "Olymp": "Astrel", "AST", 2001. - 284 p.

Materials on the Internet

1. Federal Institute for Pedagogical Measurements ().

2. Russian Geographical Society ().