Creative English: The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) comleted: Vasiliev Illarion

The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)

Completed: Vasiliev Illarion

The Sakha (Yakutia) Republic is a federal subject of Russia (a republic). Population: 958,528), consisting mainly of ethnic Yakut’s and Russian.

Comprising half of the Far Eastern Federal District, it is the largest subnational governing body by area in the world at 3,103,200 km²and the eighth largest territory in the world, if the federal subjects of Russia were compared with other countries. It is larger than Argentina and just smaller than India which covers an area of 3,287,240 km². It has a population of fewer than one million inhabitants. Its capital is the city of Yakutsk.

The Sakha Republic is one of the ten autonomous Turkic Republics within the Russian Federation. Yakutia also fosters close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the independent Turkic states through membership in organization’s such as the Turkic Council and the Joint Administration of Turkic Arts and Culture.

Early history.

The Turkic Sakha people or Yakuts probably settled in the area in the 13th and 14th centuries, migrating north from the Lake Baikal area to the middle Lena. According to their own traditional accounts, the Sakha were driven out of their earlier homeland by the Buryats. From their new center along the middle Lena they gradually expanded northeast and west beyond the Lena basin towards the Arctic Ocean.

The name Sakha is of Turk origin, "Saqa-Saha" meaning "Cue, Bat". The term Yakut is a Turk word, probably a corruption of zhaqut - yakut "semi-precious stone". The Sakha displaced earlier, much smaller populations who lived on hunting and reindeer herding, introducing the pastoralist economy of Central Asia. The indigenous populations of Paleosiberian and Tungusic stock were mostly assimilated to the Sakha by the 17th century.

In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Yakutia was recognized in Moscow as the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. Yakutia is historically part of Russian Siberia, but since the formation of the Far Eastern Federal District in 2000, it is administratively part of the Russian Far East.

Borders:

internal: Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (660km)(E), Magadan Oblast (1520km)(E/SE), Khabarovsk Krai (2130km)(SE), Amur Oblast (S), Zabaykalsky Krai (S), Irkutsk Oblast (S/SW), Krasnoyarsk Krai (W).

water: Arctic Ocean (including Laptev Sea and Eastern Siberian Sea) (N).

Highest point: Peak Pobeda (3,003 m), Peak Mus-Khaya (2959 m or 3,011 m)

Maximum N->S distance: 2,500 km (1,600 mi)

Maximum E->W distance: 2,000 km (1,200 mi)

Sakha stretches to the Henrietta Islands in the far north and is washed by the Laptev and Eastern Siberian Seas of the Arctic Ocean. These waters, the coldest and iciest of all seas in the northern hemisphere, are covered by ice for 9–10 months of the year. New Siberian Islands are a part of the republic's territory. After Nunavut was separated from Canada's Northwest Territories, Sakha became the largest subnational entity (statoid) in the world, with an area of 3,103,200 square kilometers (1,198,200 sq mi), slightly smaller than the territory of India (3.3 million km²).

Sakha can be divided into three great vegetation belts. About 40% of Sakha lies above the Arctic circle and all of it is covered by permafrost which greatly influences the region's ecology and limits forests in the southern region. Arctic and subarctic tundra define the middle region, where lichen and moss grow as great green carpets and are favorite pastures for reindeer. In the southern part of the tundra belt, scattered stands of dwarf Siberian pine and larch grow along the rivers. Below the tundra is the vast taiga forest region. Larch trees dominate in the north and stands of fir and pine begin to appear in the south. Taiga forests cover about 47% of Sakha and almost 90% of the cover is larch.

The Sakha Republic is the site of Pleistocene Park, a project directed at recreating pleistocene tundra grasslands by stimulating the growth of grass with the introduction of animals which thrived in the region during the late Pleistocene — early Holocene period.

Climate

Sakha is known for its climate extremes, with the Verkhoyansk Range being the coldest area in the northern hemisphere. Winters here are extremely cold. Some of the lowest natural temperatures ever recorded have been here. The Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold is at Verkhoyansk, where the temperatures reached as low as −67.8 °C (−90.0 °F) in 1892, and at Oymyakon, where the temperatures reached as low as −71.2 °C (−96.2 °F) in 1926.

Mountains

Sakha's greatest mountain range, the Verkhoyansk Range, runs parallel and east of the Lena River, forming a great arc that begins the Sea of Okhotsk and ends in the Laptev Sea.

The Chersky Range runs east of the Verkhoyansk Range and has the highest peak in Sakha, Peak Pobeda (3,147 m). The second highest peak is Peak Mus-Khaya reaching 3,011 m.

The Stanovoi Range borders Sakha in the south.

Natural resources

Sakha is well endowed with raw materials. The soil contains large reserves of oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, silver, tin, tungsten and many others. 99% of all Russian diamonds are mined in Sakha, accounting for over 25% of the world's diamond production.