Some Siberia Information I

---

The best of Siberia resides in its natural resources. The huge coal reserves in the Kuznetsk Basin are the largest in the world. The Basin is also rich in iron ore. Siberia also contains cobalt, zinc, copper, lead, tin, and mercury in great amounts. Norilsk is the second largest city north of the Arctic Circle where the Soviets dug the world's largest nickel mine. Diamond mines in Mirny, near the Vilyui Rover, are second only to South Africa's. Russia also has some of the world's largest oil and natural gas reserves.

I am trying to tell you something good about Siberia. That may be about it! American companies have tried to harvest timber, but the deals generally go wrong. The famous Russian business practices of corruption and bribery make it difficult. But geologist have always been attracted to Siberia. Astronomers take advantage of Siberian skies untroubled by light pollution )and troubled waters. The clarity of the sky allows visuals of satellites and shooting stars.

Even Lenin went to Siberia twice. First, when he was exiled after his arrest for revolutionary activities in St. Petersburg in December, 1895 at the tender age of 25. His original name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He even received a monthly stipend of 12 rubles. The second trip occurred after he had been dead for seventeen years. After he guided the Bolsheviks through the 1917 revolution, he suffered a series of strokes in 1923. Though he died in 1924, his body was skillfully embalmed, to the point where he looked better than he had in the months before he died!

Though he had a permanent tomb on Red Square, the Russians could not leave Lenin at risk when the Germans approached in 1941. So, they packed him up in a railcar and shipped his body to the western Siberian city of Tyumen. After he waited out the war and the 1945 Allied victory, Lenin returned from Siberia and back to his Red Square tomb.

Sidebar: The Russians did such a good job on Lenin, they were also called upon by Vietnam to preserve Ho Chi Minh. We actually saw him entombed in Hanoi some years ago. I would not say he looked better dead than alive.

On the subject of size, it is difficult to determine if Russia has benefitted or been hurt. Many experts say it is too big and spread out to ever function properly. Experts have even suggested that Russia close down its remote and hard-to-supply Siberian cities and villages. Perhaps the difficult environment is best left to wilderness.

On the positive side, the Russians say they had the resources to keep Siberia alive, despite its vastness. Other nations became empires by crossing oceans, while the Russians did the same by crossing land. Perhaps Stalin said it best, "Russia is an Asiatic land, and I myself am an Asiatic." After Russia acquired Siberia, they were told by westerners that their dominion exceeded the size of the surface of the full moon!

---