The largest state in the world - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics occupied a sixth of the planet. The area of the USSR is forty percent of Eurasia. The Soviet Union was 2.3 times larger than the US and quite a bit smaller than the North American continent. The area of the USSR is a large part of northern Asia and eastern Europe. Approximately a quarter of the territory fell on the European part of the world, the remaining three quarters lay in Asia. The main area of the USSR was occupied by Russia: three-quarters of the entire country.
The largest lakes
In the USSR, and now in Russia, there is the deepest and cleanest lake in the world - Baikal. It is the largest reservoir of fresh water created by nature, with unique fauna and flora. No wonder people have long called this lake the sea. It is located in the center of Asia, where the border of the Republic of Buryatia and the Irkutsk region passes, and stretches for six hundred and twenty kilometers in a giant crescent. The bottom of Baikal is 1167 meters below the ocean level, and its mirror is 456 meters higher. Depth - 1642 meters.
Another lake in Russia - Ladoga - is the largest in Europe. It belongs to the B altic (sea) and Atlantic (ocean) basins, the northern and eastern shores are in the Republic of Karelia, and the western, southern and southeastern shores are in the Leningrad Region. The area of Lake Ladoga in Europe, like the area of the USSR in the world, has no equal - 18,300 square kilometers.
Largest rivers
The longest river in Europe is the Volga. It is so long that the peoples who inhabited its shores gave it different names. It flows in the European part of the country. This is one of the largest water arteries on earth. In Russia, a huge part of the territory adjacent to it is called the Volga region. Its length was 3690 kilometers, and the catchment area was 1,360,000 square kilometers. There are four cities on the Volga with a population of more than a million people - Volgograd, Samara (in the USSR - Kuibyshev), Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod (in the USSR - Gorky).
In the period from the 30s to the 80s of the twentieth century, eight huge hydroelectric power stations were built on the Volga - part of the Volga-Kama cascade. The river flowing in Western Siberia - the Ob is even more full-flowing, although a little shorter. Starting in Altai from the confluence of the Biya and Katun, it runs across the country to the Kara Sea for 3,650 kilometers, and its drainage basin is 2,990,000 square kilometers. In the southern part of the river is the man-made Ob Sea, formed during the construction of the Novosibirsk hydroelectric power station, the place is amazingbeautiful.
Territory of the USSR
The western part of the USSR occupied more than half of all of Europe. But if we take into account the entire area of the USSR before the collapse of the country, then the territory of the western part was barely a quarter of the entire country. However, the population was much higher: only twenty-eight percent of the country's inhabitants settled in the entire vast eastern territory.
In the west, between the Ural and Dnieper rivers, the Russian Empire was born and it was here that all the prerequisites for the emergence and prosperity of the Soviet Union appeared. The area of the USSR changed several times before the collapse of the country: some territories joined, for example, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the B altic states. Gradually, the largest agricultural and industrial enterprises were organized in the eastern part, due to the presence there of various and richest minerals.
Borderland in length
The borders of the USSR, since our country, and now, after the separation of fourteen republics from it, is the largest in the world, are extremely long - 62,710 kilometers. From the west, the Soviet Union stretched east for ten thousand kilometers - ten time zones from the Kaliningrad region (Curonian Spit) to Ratmanov Island in the Bering Strait.
From south to north, the USSR ran for five thousand kilometers - from Kushka to Cape Chelyuskin. It had to border on land with twelve countries - six of them in Asia (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China and North Korea), six in Europe (Finland, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,Romania). The territory of the USSR had maritime borders only with Japan and the USA.
Borderland wide
From north to south, the USSR stretched for 5,000 km from Cape Chelyuskin in the Taimyr Autonomous District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory to the Central Asian city of Kushka, Mary Region, Turkmen SSR. By land, the USSR bordered on 12 countries: 6 in Asia (DPRK, China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey) and 6 in Europe (Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway and Finland).
By sea, the USSR bordered on two countries - the USA and Japan. The country was washed by twelve seas of the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The thirteenth sea is the Caspian, although in all respects it is a lake. That is why two-thirds of the borders were located along the seas, because the area of the former USSR had the longest coastline in the world.
Republics of the USSR: unification
In 1922, at the time of the formation of the USSR, it included four republics - the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR. Further divisions and replenishment took place. In Central Asia, the Turkmen and Uzbek SSRs were formed (1924), and there were six republics within the USSR. In 1929, the autonomous republic located in the RSFSR was transformed into the Tajik SSR, of which there were already seven. In 1936, Transcaucasia was divided: three union republics were separated from the federation: Azerbaijan, Armenian and Georgian SSR.
At the same time, two more Central Asian autonomous republics that were part of the RSFSR were separated as the Kazakh and Kirghiz SSR. Total republicsbecame eleven. In 1940, several more republics were admitted to the USSR, and there were sixteen of them: the Moldavian SSR, the Lithuanian SSR, the Latvian SSR and the Estonian SSR joined the country. In 1944, Tuva joined, but the SSR Tuva Autonomous Region did not. The Karelian-Finnish SSR (ASSR) changed its status several times, so there were fifteen republics in the 60s. In addition, there are documents according to which in the 60s Bulgaria asked to join the ranks of the union republics, but the request of Comrade Todor Zhivkov was not granted.
Republics of the USSR: collapse
From 1989 to 1991, the so-called parade of sovereignties took place in the USSR. Six of the fifteen republics refused to join the new federation - the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics and declared independence (Lithuanian SSR, Latvian, Estonian, Armenian and Georgian), and the Moldavian SSR declared a transition to independence. With all this, a number of autonomous republics decided to remain part of the union. These are Tatar, Bashkir, Chechen-Ingush (all - Russia), South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Georgia), Transnistria and Gagauzia (Moldova), Crimea (Ukraine).
Crash
But the collapse of the USSR took on a landslide character, and in 1991 almost all union republics proclaimed independence. It also failed to create a confederation, although Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Belarus decided to conclude such an agreement.
Then Ukraine held an independence referendum and the three founding republics signed the Bialowieza agreements to dissolve the confederation, creating the CIS (Commonwe alth of Independentstates) at the level of an interstate organization. The RSFSR, Kazakhstan and Belarus did not declare independence and did not hold referendums. Kazakhstan, however, did so later.
Georgian SSR
Formed in February 1921 under the name of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Since 1922, it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR as part of the USSR, and only in December 1936 directly became one of the republics of the Soviet Union. The Georgian SSR included the South Ossetian Autonomous Region, the Abkhaz ASSR, and the Adzhar ASSR. In the 1970s, the dissident movement under the leadership of Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Mirab Kostava intensified in Georgia. Perestroika brought new leaders to the Communist Party of Georgia, they lost the elections.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared independence, but Georgia did not like it, the invasion began. Russia took part in this conflict on the side of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2000, the visa-free regime between Russia and Georgia was abolished. In 2008 (August 8) there was a "five-day war", as a result of which the President of Russia signed decrees recognizing the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as sovereign and independent states.
Armenia
The Armenian SSR was formed in November 1920, at first it was also part of the Transcaucasian Federation, and in 1936 it was separated and directly became part of the USSR. Armenia is located in the south of Transcaucasia, bordering on Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. Area of Armenia 29 800square kilometers, population 2,493,000 people (1970 USSR census). The capital of the republic is Yerevan, the largest city among twenty-three (compared to 1913, when there were only three cities in Armenia, one can imagine the volume of construction and the scale of development of the republic in its Soviet period).
In addition to cities, twenty-eight new urban-type settlements were built in thirty-four districts. The terrain is mostly mountainous, harsh, so almost half of the population lived in the Ararat Valley, which is only six percent of the total territory. The population density is very high everywhere - 83.7 people per square kilometer, and in the Ararat valley - up to four hundred people. In the USSR, there was a lot of crowding only in Moldova. Also, favorable climatic and geographical conditions attracted people to the shores of Lake Sevan and to the Shirak valley. Sixteen percent of the territory of the republic is not covered by the permanent population at all, because it is impossible to live for a long time at altitudes of more than 2500 above sea level. After the collapse of the country, the Armenian SSR, already being a free Armenia, experienced several very difficult ("dark") years of blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey, the confrontation with which has a long history.
Belarus
Belarusian SSR was located in the west of the European part of the USSR, bordered on Poland. The area of the republic is 207,600 square kilometers, the population is 9,371,000 people as of January 1976. National composition according to the 1970 census: 7,290,000 Belarusians, the rest was divided by Russians, Poles, Ukrainians,Jews and a very small number of people of other nationalities.
Density - 45, 1 person per square kilometer. The largest cities: the capital - Minsk (1,189,000 inhabitants), Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Grodno, Bobruisk, Baranovichi, Brest, Borisov, Orsha. In Soviet times, new cities appeared: Soligorsk, Zhodino, Novopolotsk, Svetlogorsk and many others. In total, there are ninety-six cities and one hundred and nine urban-type settlements in the republic.
Nature is mostly flat type, moraine hills stretch in the north-west (Belarusian ridge), south under the swamps of the Belarusian Polesie. There are many rivers, the main ones are the Dnieper with Pripyat and Sozh, the Neman, the Western Dvina. In addition, there are more than eleven thousand lakes in the republic. The forest occupies a third of the territory, it is mostly coniferous.
History of the Byelorussian SSR
Soviet power was established in Belarus almost immediately after the October Revolution, followed by occupation: first German (1918), then Polish (1919-1920). In 1922, the BSSR was already part of the USSR, and in 1939 it was reunited with Western Belarus, which was torn away by Poland in connection with the treaty. The socialist society of the republic in 1941 fully rose to fight the Nazi-German invaders: partisan detachments operated throughout the territory (there were 1255 of them, almost four hundred thousand people participated in them). Belarus has been a member of the UN since 1945.
Communist building after the war was very successful. The BSSR was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Orders of Friendship of Peoples and the Order of the October Revolution. From the agricultural poorBelarus has become a prosperous and industrial country, which has established close ties with the rest of the union republics. In 1975, the level of industrial production exceeded the level of 1940 twenty-one times, and the level of 1913 - one hundred and sixty-six. Heavy industry and mechanical engineering developed. Power stations were built: Berezovskaya, Lukomlskaya, Vasilevichskaya, Smolevichskaya. The peat fuel industry (the oldest in the industry) has grown into oil production and processing.
Industry and standard of living of the population of the BSSR
Mechanical engineering by the seventies of the twentieth century was represented by machine tool building, tractor building (the well-known tractor "Belarus"), automotive engineering (the giant "Belaz", for example), radio electronics. The chemical, food, and light industries developed and grew stronger. The standard of living in the republic rose steadily; in the ten years since 1966, the national income has grown two and a half times, and real per capita income has almost doubled. The retail turnover of cooperative and state trade (with public catering) has increased tenfold.
In 1975, deposits in savings banks reached almost three and a half billion rubles (in 1940 it was seventeen million). The republic became educated, moreover, education has not changed to this day, since it has not departed from the Soviet standard. The world highly appreciated such fidelity to the principles: colleges and universities of the republic attract a huge number of foreign students. Hereuse two languages equally: Belarusian and Russian.
