Primorsky Krai


Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subject of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The city of Vladivostok on the southern coast of the krai is its administrative center, and the second largest city in the Russian Far East, behind Khabarovsk in the neighbouring Khabarovsk Krai. Primorsky Krai has the largest economy among the federal subjects in the Russian Far East, and a population of 1,845,165 as of the 2021 Census.
The krai has Russia's only border with North Korea, along the Tumen River in Khasansky District in the southwestern corner of the krai. Peter the Great Gulf, the largest gulf in the Sea of Japan, is on the south coast.
The territory of the krai was historically part of Manchuria. It was ceded to the Russian Empire by Qing China in 1860 as part of a region known as Outer Manchuria, forming most of the territory of Primorskaya Oblast. As a result, China permanently lost its coastline with the Sea of Japan. During the Russian Civil War it became part of the Far Eastern Republic before joining the Soviet Union, going through numerous changes until reaching its current form in 1938. Primorsky Krai is home to the Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet and is also known as the birthplace of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Etymology

The name of the krai is derived from the Russian words приморский, meaning "littoral" or "coastal", and край, meaning "region" or "area". It is informally known as Primorye in Russian, and is occasionally translated as Maritime Territory in English.

Geography

  • Border length — over, including of the sea borders.
  • Highest peak — Anik Mountain,
  • Rail network length — .
  • Automobile road length —
Primorsky Krai, bordered by China, North Korea and Khabarovsk Krai, and the relatively warm—although freezing in winter—waters of the Sea of Japan, is the southeasternmost region of Russia, located between the 42° and 48° north latitude and 130° and 139° east longitude. It is stretched in the meridianal direction, the distance from its extreme northern point to its most southerly point being about.

Topography

Highlands dominate the territory of the krai. Most of the territory is mountainous, and almost 80% of it is forested. The average elevation is about. Sikhote-Alin is a mountainous formation, extending for the most part of the Krai. It consists of a number of parallel ranges: the Partizansky, the Siny, the Kholodny, and others. There are many karst caves in the south of Primorye, including the relatively accessible Spyashchaya Krasavitsa cave in the Ussuriysky Nature Preserve. There are comparatively well-preserved fragments of ancient volcanoes in the area.
The ranges are cut by the picturesque narrow and deep valleys of the rivers and by large brooks, such as the Partizanskaya, the Kiyevka, the Zerkalnaya, the Cheryomukhovaya, the Yedinka, the Samarga, the Bikin, and the Bolshaya Ussurka. Most rivers in the Krai have rocky bottoms and limpid water. The largest among them is the Ussuri, with a length of. The head of the Ussuri River originates east of Oblachnaya Mountain. The vast Khanka Lowlands extend into the west and southwest of Primorye, carpeted by coniferous-deciduous forest. A part of the Lowland surrounding the largest lake in the Russian Far East, Khanka Lake, is occupied by a forest-steppe.

Coast and islands

The krai's coastline is fairly straight, except for the southernmost section around Vladivostok which contains the Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula.
There are numerous islands in this area, the main ones being Lisy Island, Askold Island, Putyatin Island, Skrebtsov island, Sibiryakov Island, the Eugénie Archipelago, the Rimsky-Korsakov Archipelago and Furugelm Island.

Flora and fauna

The geographic location of Primorye accounts for the variety of its flora. The territory of Primorye has not been subjected to the ice cover in the past in contrast to the rest of Siberia during the ice ages. The specifics of the geographic situation and the specific features of climate determine the unique diversity of the plant world at species and genetic levels and the richness of plant resources. In the flora of Primorye, there are more than two thousand species of higher plants, of which are about 250 species of trees, bushes, and ligneous lianas. Flora of mosses and lichens are very diverse. As part of the coastal flora, there are many valuable medicinal, technical and food plants, many relict and endemic species. About 200 species are listed in the IUCN Red List as rare and threatened extermination.
There are mountainous tundra areas, conifers and coniferous-deciduous forests, and forest-steppe, which is sometimes called the Far Eastern Prairie, where many ancient plant species have been preserved, including ferns, lotus, and the willow Salix arbutifolia. The flora of the territory contains such plants as Taxus cuspidata, Juniperus rigida, Phellodendron amurense, Kalopanax, Aralia elata, Maackia amurensis, Alnus japonica, Actinidia kolomikta, Schisandra chinensis, Celastrus orbiculatus, Thladiantha dubia, Weigela, Eleutherococcus, Flueggea suffruticosa, Deutzia, Nelumbo nucifera, Betula schmidtii, Carpinus cordata, Acer mandshuricum, Parthenocissus tricuspidata, Vitis amurensis, Panax ginseng and many others.
The fauna of Primorye is also diverse. The following animals are found in the Krai: Ussuri black bear, Amur tiger, Amur leopard, Eurasian lynx, wild boar, Manchurian deer, Siberian roe deer, musk deer, long-tailed goral, sika deer, sable, Blakiston's fish owl, mandarinka duck, black stork, scaly goosander, chestnut-cheeked starling, black griffon, large-winged cuckoo, and others. Among 690 species of birds inhabiting the territory of the former USSR, 350 are found in Primorye. Rich fisheries of salmon, Hucho taimen, lenok and marine fisheries of crab, pollock and other species make the aquatic and maritime environment a valuable resource for the region. However, the rich diversity of wildlife in Primorye is threatened by poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund, Wild Salmon Center, and Russian NGOs including Phoenix Fund are active in the region's wildlife and habitat conservation.

Climate

  • Primorsky Krai is dominated by a four-season humid continental climate.
  • Average annual temperature — near in the north of the krai; on the southern coast.
  • Average annual precipitation — 520-920 mm per year. Precipitation reaches its peak in the summer months.

    History

The area is believed to have been settled by several Tungusic and Mongolic tribes, such as the Sushen, the proto-Mongol Shiwei and the Mohe. Although, there are other popular
The Udege people are said to have traditionally settled in territories along the Bikin River long ago, however, they are possibly of Jianzhou Jurchen origin.
In the past, the land was part of Goguryeo, the northernmost kingdom among the three Korean kingdoms.
During the Balhae Kingdom, most of the krai was within the boundaries of the provinces of Dingli, Anbian and Anyuan. After Balhae was conquered by the Khitans, the territory became part of Liao dynasty's Eastern Circuit and Jin dynasty's Supin Circuit. It then came under Mongol and Manchu rule.
The acquisition of Siberia by the Tsardom of Russia and the subsequent Russian expansion to the Far East brought the Russians into direct contact with China. The Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689 demarcating the borders of the two states gave all lands lying south of the Stanovoy Mountains, including Primorye, to the Qing Empire. However, with the weakening of the Qing Empire in the second half of the 19th century, Russia began its expansion into the area. In 1858, the towns of Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk were founded. In 1858, Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky signed the Aigun Treaty with China, followed by the Beijing Treaty two years later. As a result of the two treaties, the Sino–Russian border shifted south in the Amur Annexation to the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, granting Russia full control of Primorye.
Primorskaya Oblast was established as the easternmost division of the Russian Empire in 1856. It included the territory of modern Primorsky Krai as well as the territories of modern Khabarovsk Krai and Magadan Oblast, stretching from Vladivostok to the Chukchi Peninsula in the far north.
In the period from 1859 to 1882, ninety-five settlements were established in the Primorye region, including Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Razdolnoye, Vladimiro-Aleksandrovskoye, Shkotovo, Pokrovka, Tury Rog, and Kamen-Rybolov. Russians began migrating to these regions. The population was primarily engaged in hunting, fishing and cultivation. More than two-thirds of the territory's inhabitants followed these occupations.
During the latter part of the 19th century, there was a significant resource, industrial and resulting economic development in Primorye. Coal mining became a prominent industry, as did the export of sea-kale, velvet antlers, timber, crab, dried fish, and trepangs. The rapid economic expansion of Primorye was financed in large measure by Russian and foreign capital investment.
After the Russian Revolution and the victory of the communists, the new government renamed Primorskaya Oblast as the Zemstvo of Maritime Territory. It was defined as the Far-Eastern Republic. Within the Russian SFSR, this became Far-Eastern Oblast and then Far-Eastern Krai.
The area became a battleground for allied and Bolshevik troops during the Siberian Intervention. In 1922, shortly before the end of the Civil War, Primorye came under Bolshevik control. The new government directed the economic, scientific, and cultural development of the territory. The Soviet Government spent the following ten years combating "bourgeois ideology" in many areas of life and culture. As a result, the music, theater, literature, and the fine arts of Primorye were censored.
Primorsky was the center of the ethnic Korean minority of Russia. The Pos'et Korean National Raion was created under the policy of Korenizatsiya. The Krai had 105 both fully and mixed Korean towns where residents used the Korean language as an official language. Nearly 200,000 ethnic Koreans were living in the Krai by the time of their deportation in 1938. The Soviet Union had earlier deported ethnic Chinese from western Siberia.
During this period, the Soviet government emphasized centralized planning of the economy. As in the rest of the Soviet Union, priority was given to heavy industry, with a special emphasis on mining and commercial fishing. There was a widespread investment in the construction of rail and sea transit, and new port facilities were constructed.
Primorsky Krai was formed by further subdivision of Far-Eastern Krai in 1938, as part of the Stalin-era policy of "unbundling". Primorsky Krai, as defined in 1938, corresponds to the northeastern part of the historical region of Outer Manchuria.
On April 18, 1942, the region became accidentally involved in World War II, which the United States had entered after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Primorsky Krai was the location where one of 16 United States Army Air Corps North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers landed. The group had been launched from USS Hornet to carry out the Doolittle Raid on Japan. Japan and the Soviet Union were not then at war. The landing occurred 40 miles west of Vladivostok; the bomber's crew could not return to their base, the aircraft carrier Hornet, by the mission plan. The crew later returned home via Iran.
During the 1970s, the Soviet Union expanded scientific institutions in Primorye, especially in the city of Vladivostok. Several large research institutions are located here, such as the Institute of Biology and Agriculture, the Pacific Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry, the Institute of Marine Biology, the Pacific Institute of Geography, the Pacific Oceanological Institute, as well as several Institutes affiliated with the Far Eastern Division of the Russian Academy of Science.
By the early 1990s, once-small enterprises in the city had developed into large companies. Some of the most prominent include the DVMP shipping company, the Dalmoreprodukt fishing company, Progress Arsenyev Aircraft Works, and Vostok Mining. Commercial fishing plays an important part in the economy of the Primorye and includes firms like Vladivostok Trawling and Refrigerating Fleet, the Active Marine Fisheries Base of Nakhodka, and the Fishing and Marine Transport Fleet of Primorye. Numerous enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex were also established in Primorye.
The Udege people, led by Pavel Sulyandziga, are trying to gain control over their traditional territories along the Bikin River and in particular a Territory of Traditional Natural Resource Use of federal status.