The territory of the Russian Far East is a geographical area that includes areas in the river basins that flow into the Pacific Ocean. This also includes the Kuril, Shantar and Commander Islands, Sakhalin and Wrangel Islands. Further, this part of the Russian Federation will be described in detail, as well as some cities of the Russian Far East (a list of the largest will be given in the text).

Population

The territory of the Russian Far East is considered the most depopulating in the country. About 6.3 million people live here. This is approximately 5% of the total population of the Russian Federation. During 1991-2010, the population decreased by 1.8 million people. As for the population growth rate in the Far East, it is -3.9 in the Primorsky Territory, 1.8 in the Republic of Sakha, 0.7 in the JAO, 1.3 in the Khabarovsk Territory, 7.8 in Sakhalin, 17.3 in the Magadan Region, and 17.3 in the Amur Region. - 6, Kamchatka Territory - 6.2, Chukotka - 14.9. If the current trends continue, Chukotka will be left without a population in 66 years, and Magadan in 57.

Subjects

The Far East of Russia covers an area of ​​6169.3 thousand kilometers. This is about 36% of the entire country. Transbaikalia is often referred to as the Far East. This is due to its geographical location, as well as the activity of migration. The following regions of the Far East are administratively distinguished: Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin, Jewish Autonomous Regions, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk Territories. The Far Eastern Federal District also includes Primorsky Krai,

History of the Russian Far East

In the 1-2 millennium BC, the Amur region was inhabited by various tribes. The peoples of the Russian Far East today are not as diverse as they were in those days. The population then consisted of Daurs, Udeges, Nivkhs, Evenks, Nanais, Orochs, etc. The main occupations of the population were fishing and hunting. The most ancient settlements of Primorye, which date back to the Paleolithic era, were discovered near the Nakhodka region. In the Stone Age, Itelmens, Ainu and Koryaks settled on the territory of Kamchatka. By the middle of the 19th century, Evenks began to appear here. In the 17th century, the Russian government began to expand Siberia and the Far East. 1632 became the year of foundation of Yakutsk. Under the leadership of the Cossack Semyon Shelkovnikov, a winter hut was organized on the coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk in 1647. Today, this place is the Russian port - Okhotsk.

The development of the Russian Far East continued. So, by the middle of the 17th century, the explorers Khabarov and Poyarkov went south from the Yakut prison. Na and Zeya, they encountered tribes that paid tribute to the Chinese Qing Empire. As a result of the first conflict between the countries, the Nerchinsk Treaty was signed. In accordance with it, the Cossacks had to transfer to the Qing Empire the regions formed on the lands of the Albazinsky Voivodeship. In accordance with the agreement, diplomatic and trade relations were determined. The border under the agreement passed in the north along the river. Gorbitsa and mountain ranges of the Amur basin. Uncertainty remained in the area of ​​the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The territories between the Taikansky and Kivun ranges were undelimited. By the end of the 17th century, the Russian Cossacks Kozyrevsky and Atlasov began exploring the Kamchatka peninsula. In the first half of the 18th century, it was included in Russia.

XVIII century

In 1724, Peter I sent the first expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula. He headed it Thanks to the work of researchers, Russian science received valuable information about the eastern part of Siberia. We are talking, in particular, about the modern Magadan and Kamchatka regions. New maps appeared, the coordinates of the Far Eastern coast and the strait, which was later called the Bering Strait, were accurately determined. In 1730 a second expedition was created. It was led by Chirikov and Bering. The task of the expedition was to reach the coast of America. Interest, in particular, was represented by Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Chichagov, Steller, Krasheninnikov began to explore Kamchatka in the 18th century.

19th century

During this period, the active development of the Russian Far East began. This was largely facilitated by the weakening of the Qing Empire. She was involved in the Opium War in 1840. Military operations against the combined army of France and England in the areas of Guangzhou and Macau required large material and human resources. In the north, China was left virtually without any cover, and Russia took advantage of this. She, along with other European powers, participated in the division of the weakening Qing Empire. In 1850 Lieutenant Nevelskoy landed at the mouth of the Amur. There he established a military post. Convinced that the Qing government had not recovered from the consequences of the opium war and was inflamed in its actions and, accordingly, could not give an adequate response to Russia's claims, Nevelskoy decided to declare the coast of the Tatar Prospect and the mouth of the Amur to be domestic possessions.

In 1854, on May 14, Count Muraviev, who had information received from Nevelsky about the absence of Chinese military units, organized rafting on the river. The expedition included the Argun steamer, 29 rafts, 48 ​​boats and about 800 people. During the rafting, ammunition, troops and food were delivered. Part of the military went to Kamchatka by sea to strengthen the Peter and Paul garrison. The rest remained for the implementation of the plan for the study of the Amur region on the former Chinese territory. A year later, a second rafting was organized. It was attended by about 2.5 thousand people. By the end of 1855, several settlements were organized in the lower reaches of the Amur: Sergeevskoye, Novo-Mikhailovskoye, Bogorodskoye, Irkutsk. In 1858, the right bank was officially annexed to Russia in accordance with the Aigun Treaty. On the whole, it should be said that Russia's policy in the Far East was not of an aggressive nature. Agreements were signed with other states without the use of military force.

Physical location

The Far East of Russia in the extreme south borders on the DPRK, in the southeast on Japan. In the extreme northeast in the Bering Strait - from the USA. Another state with which the Far East (Russia) borders is China. In addition to the administrative, there is another division of the Far Eastern Federal District. So, the so-called regions of the Far East of Russia are distinguished. These are fairly large areas. Northeastern Siberia, the first of these, roughly corresponds to the eastern part of Yakutia (mountainous regions east of Aldan and Lena). The North Pacific country is the second zone. It includes the eastern parts of the Magadan Region, the Chukotka Autonomous Region, and the northern parts of the Khabarovsk Territory. It also includes the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka. The Amur-Sakhalin country includes the Jewish Autonomous Okrug, the Amur Region, the southern part of the Khabarovsk Territory. It also includes the island of Sakhalin and Primorsky Krai. Yakutia is included in Central and Southern Siberia, except for its eastern part.

Climate

Here it should be said that the Far East of Russia has a rather large extent. This explains the special contrast of the climate. Throughout Yakutia and in the Kolyma regions of the Magadan region, for example, sharply continental prevails. And in the southeast - monsoon type of climate. This difference is determined by the interaction of maritime and continental air masses in temperate latitudes. The south is characterized by a sharply monsoon climate, and maritime and monsoon-like for the north. This is the result of the interaction of land and the Pacific Ocean. The Sea of ​​Okhotsk, as well as the Primorsky cold current along the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan, has a special influence on the state of the climate. Mountainous relief is also of no small importance in this zone. In the continental part of the Far Eastern Federal District, winters are not snowy and frosty.

weather features

Summer here is quite hot, but relatively short. As for the coastal regions, winters are snowy and mild, springs are cold and long, autumns are warm and long, and summers are relatively cool. On the coast, cyclones, fogs, typhoons and torrential rains are frequent. The height of the fallen snow in Kamchatka can reach six meters. The closer to the southern regions, the higher the humidity becomes. So, in the south of Primorye, it is quite often set at around 90%. Almost throughout the Far East in the summer there are prolonged rains. This, in turn, causes systematic river floods, flooding of agricultural land and residential buildings. In the Far East, there are long periods of sunny and clear weather. At the same time, continuous rains for several days are considered quite common. This kind of diversity of the Far East of Russia differs from the "gray" European part of the Russian Federation. There are also dust storms in the central part of the Far Eastern Federal District. They come from the deserts of Northern China and Mongolia. A significant part of the Far East is equated or is the Far North (except for the Jewish Autonomous Region, the south of the Amur Region, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories).

Natural resources

In the Far East, the reserves of raw materials are quite large. This allows him to be in the leading positions in the Russian economy in a number of positions. Thus, the Far East in the total Russian production accounts for 98% of diamonds, 80% of tin, 90% of boron raw materials, 14% of tungsten, 50% of gold, more than 40% of seafood and fish, 80% of soybeans, cellulose 7%, wood 13%. Among the main industries of the Far Eastern Federal District, it is worth noting the mining and processing of non-ferrous metal, pulp and paper, fishing, timber industry, ship repair and shipbuilding.

Industries

In the Far East, the main income is brought by the forestry, fishing industry, mining, and non-ferrous metal mining. These industries account for more than half of all marketable products. Manufacturing industries are considered underdeveloped. When exporting raw materials, the region incurs losses in the form of value added. The remoteness of the Far Eastern Federal District causes significant transport margins. They are reflected in the cost indicators of many economic sectors.

Mineral resources

In terms of their reserves, the Far East occupies a leading position in the Russian Federation. In terms of volume, tin, boron, and antimony available here account for about 95% of the total amount of these resources in the country. Fluorspar and mercury account for about 60%, tungsten - 24%, iron ore, apatite, native sulfur and lead - 10%. In the Republic of Sakha, in its northwestern part, there is a diamond-bearing province, the largest in the world. The Aikhal, Mir, and Udachnoye deposits account for more than 80% of the total diamond reserves in Russia. The proven reserves of iron ore in the south of Yakutia amount to more than 4 billion tons. This is about 80% of the regional volume. These reserves are also significant in the Jewish Autonomous Region. There are large coal deposits in the South Yakutsk and Lena basins. Its deposits are also present in the Khabarovsk, Primorsky Territories, and the Amur Region. Placer and ore gold deposits have been discovered and are being developed in the Republic of Sakha and the Magadan Region. Similar deposits were found in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories. In the same territories, deposits of tungsten and tin ores are being developed. Lead and zinc reserves are mostly concentrated in Primorsky Krai. A titanium ore province has been identified in the Khabarovsk Territory and the Amur Region. In addition to the above, there are also deposits of non-metallic raw materials. These are, in particular, reserves of limestones, refractory clays, graphite, sulfur, and quartz sands.

Geostrategic position

The Far Eastern Federal District has the most important geopolitical significance for the Russian Federation. There is access to two oceans: the Arctic and the Pacific. Taking into account the high rates of development of the Asia-Pacific Region, integration into the Far Eastern Federal District is very promising for the fatherland. With a reasonable conduct of activities, the Far East can become a "bridge" in the Asia-Pacific region.

Cities of the Far East of Russia: list

These cities of the Russian Far East are of great economic and geostrategic importance for the Russian Federation. Blagoveshchensk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Nakhodka, Ussuriysk are considered very promising. Yakutsk is of particular importance for the entire region. At the same time, it should be noted that there are also dying settlements. Most of them are located in Chukotka. This is mainly due to the inaccessibility of areas and severe weather conditions.

General characteristics of the Far East

From the point of view of the central regions, the Far East of Russia is such a distant region, but at the same time amazing, mysterious, unsolved and immense. $1.5 times less people live on the vast territory than in Moscow. The Far East is the country's natural pantry. The strategic reserve in the form of Yakutian diamonds is more than $80$% of all diamond reserves in Russia. Practically throughout the entire territory of the Far East there are deposits of gold, non-ferrous metals, minerals, coal, hydrocarbons. Fish splash in the full-flowing rivers of the Far East, and forests with unique flora and fauna are unparalleled.

The reserves of various natural resources open up a broad prospect for the development of the region. The Far East is open to the Pacific Ocean and is inextricably linked with it, therefore, in a natural sense, it is completely different in comparison with Siberia. There are many active volcanoes in the region, earthquakes are frequent, and tsunamis are typical. This "violence of the elements" is clearly manifested here. The immediate proximity of the Pacific Ocean determines the climate of the Far East, called the monsoon.

AT winter period an anticyclone dominates here, because the surface of the earth becomes very cold. Winter winds blow from land to ocean as The pressure over water is lower than over land. Winters are quite severe and the influence of the sea is almost not felt. Located at the latitude of Sochi, Vladivostok, for example, has the same severe winter as Arkhangelsk.

Summer the whole situation is changing - the winds blowing from the sea bring precipitation to the land and from time to time heavy showers fall on the territory. Most often this happens in autumn, floods occur on the rivers and the water floods the banks. There are also Pacific typhoons with strong hurricane winds and heavy rains. An amazing diversity of species composition and a mixture of wildlife is its feature. Most of all, this is typical for the southern part of the Far East, located between the Amur, Ussuri, and the Sea of ​​Japan. Here, in the lower reaches of the Amur, moss grows, and reindeer are found, and not far from Lake Khanka, lotus grows, wild grapes and Amur tigers live. Until now, biologists are amazed that spruces are wrapped around wild grapes. The surprising thing is that these plants belong to different climatic zones.

The history of the discovery of the Russian Far East

Detachments of pioneer Cossacks appeared in the Far East in the $17th century. From the moment the territory was opened, its settlement began. First, the Cossacks paved the way to the icy seas and rivers of the Arctic Ocean, and only then went to the southern lands up to the Amur and Primorye. Petr Beketov penetrates up the Lena in $1632$ and becomes the founder of the prison, which received the name Yakutsk. Ostrog becomes the center of the East Siberian Territory and a base for further campaigns.

After $7$ years, in $1639$, a detachment of Cossacks led by I. Moskvitin reached the shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Having laid the ostrogek at the mouth of the Ulya River, I. Moskvitin explored the coast for a considerable length.

The first Russian campaign along the Amur River was made by V.D. Poyarkov in $1643$-$1646$ and thus made a significant contribution to the study of the Far East.

E. Khabarov made two expeditions to the Amur lands. From $1649$-$1652$ cities were founded in the Amur region - Albazin, Achin, etc.

In $1648$ the eastern extremity of Asia was reached by S. Dezhnev and F. Alekseev.

The detachment of V. Atlasov reached Kamchatka, having set out from the Anadyr prison. "Petitions" and "tales" formed the basis of the map, which was compiled in $1667$ by Mr. P.I. Godunov. The map was called "Drawing of the Siberian land".

The Kamchatka expeditions led by V. Bering and A. Chirikov were of great importance in the studies of the Far East. Expeditions took place in the period from $1725$-$1730$. and $1733$-$1743$

The results of the expeditions were significant:

1. The outlines of the north of the Far East have been determined;
2. The Aleutian and Commander Islands were discovered;
3. The issue of "connecting Asia with America" ​​has been resolved.

The studies carried out in the $XVII$-$XVIII$ centuries provided a well-prepared ground for further voyages of Russian sailors to the shores of the Far East. Such famous navigators as I.F. Kruzenshtern and Yu.F. Lisyansky, V.M. Golovin, M.P. Lazarev and F.P. Litke.

In the first half of the 19th century, it was established that Sakhalin was an island and one could go out to sea from the mouth of the Amur. These discoveries were made by the expedition of G.I. Nevelskoy. Later, such strongholds of the Far East as Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Vladivostok appeared.

In the $50s of the $19th century, organized settlement of the territory of the Far East began, which intensified after the abolition of serfdom and the adoption of laws on settlers.

With the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in $ 1891, interest in the Far East increases. Geographical, geological, and economic research is being developed. There are industrial enterprises - fish, mining, trade. Despite these changes, the Far East remained a backward region of tsarist Russia, its raw materials "appendage". The region's economy was dominated by foreign monopolies and ruthlessly exploited its wealth and population. The territory was sparsely populated, and the population was distributed extremely unevenly.

$1.2 million people lived in the region in $1920, and today about $8 million people live. And in our time, the Far East is still sparsely populated and underdeveloped. Today, unfortunately, it is the outskirts of Russia.

Physical and geographical position of the Far East and its features

The territory of the Far East is located on the eastern outskirts of Russia and is stretched from north to south along the seas of the Pacific Ocean for $4500$ km. The north of the Far East has access to the seas of the Arctic Ocean - East Siberian and Chukchi.

The southern border of the Far East coincides with the state border of Russia. By land, the border runs with China and North Korea, and by water with Japan and the United States. This suggests that the peculiarity of the Far East is the coastal and border position. The border with the United States passes through the islands. In the Bering Strait are the Diomede Islands, the western one is the island Ratmanova- belongs to Russia, and the eastern one is an island Kruzenshtern- belongs to the USA. The islands are separated by a strait $4$ km wide. In the event of hostilities, the two superpowers would have come into direct contact in this place. The formation of the Russian-Japanese border has a long history.

The first Russian-Japanese treaty, signed during the unsuccessful Crimean War for Russia, in $1855$ recognized Sakhalin Island as an undivided territory between the two countries. The southern part of the Kuril Islands - Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup - was recognized as Japanese territory under the treaty. The $1875$ agreement "On the exchange of territories" testified that Russia was transferring all the Kuril Islands to Japan. In return, Russia demanded that Japan renounce its claims to Sakhalin. After the Russo-Japanese War, which was unsuccessful for Russia, under a $1905$ peace treaty, the southern half of Sakhalin was ceded to Japan. After the victory over the Japanese Kwantung Army in $1945$, southern Sakhalin and all the Kuril Islands were again ceded to the USSR. Japan disputes this, and there is no peace treaty between Russia and Japan to date.

Remark 1

The settlement and development of the Far East before and after the revolution had the main goal - to secure these territories for Russia and have an open outlet to the Pacific Ocean. Hence the important task of strengthening Russia's military presence in the Pacific Ocean and ensuring the defense of this territory.

The region includes not only the mainland, but also the islands - Wrangel, Sakhalin, Kuril, Commander and the Kamchatka Peninsula. In the west, the border of the Far East begins at the confluence of Shilka and Argun, then goes through the Stanovoy Range, the Dzhugdzhur Range, the Kolyma Highlands into the East Siberian Sea. The extreme northern point of the Far East is Cape Shelaginsky, and in the south - the mouth of the Tumen-Ula River. The remoteness of the region from the main economic potential of Russia is another feature of its position. Not only to Moscow, but also to the industrial centers of Siberia, it is separated by many thousands of kilometers. The Far East occupies $36% of the territory of Russia, which is $6215.0 thousand sq. km. The length of the coastline of the region with the islands is $17.7 thousand km.

Remark 2

The proximity of the Pacific Rim countries to the Russian Far East suggests that in the future it will focus on ties with these countries. The important thing in this matter is to avoid its role as a mere supplier of raw materials, but to use the richest resources of the region to raise the living standards of the population. For the region, an important task is the worthy representation of Russia and the protection of its interests in the Far East of our country.

On the topic: "Far East"

I.Introduction…………………………………………………………………3

II.Geographical position……………………………………….4

III.Climate…………………………………………………………………5

IV.Population…………………………………………………………..5

V.Resources………………………………………………………………….9

VI. Coal industry …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

VII.Mining industry ……………………………..20

VIII. Fisheries……………………………………………….21

IX. Forestry, woodworking, pulp and paper industry……………………………………………………..23

X. Power industry………………………………………………..26

XI . Light industry……………………………………….30

XII . Water transport………………………………………………30

XIII . Railways………………………………………………….35

XIV . Road transport…………………………………..38

XV. Civil Aviation………………………………………….40

XVI.Pipeline transport…………………………………….41

XVII . Agriculture……………………………………………….41

XVIII . Conclusion………………………………………………………..43

XIX . Literature………………………………………………………..44

Introduction

The region includes the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, Khabarovsk Territory, Primorsky Territory, Amur, Sakhalin, Kamchatka and Magadan regions. According to a number of basic characteristics (economic and geographical location, natural resources, conditions for their development, specialization of the economy), two sub-regions are distinguished: North (Yakutia-Sakha and Magadan Region) and South (Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories, Amur, Sakhalin and Kamchatka Regions). The Far East South is much more favorable for economic development than the North. About 30% of the region's area is home to 80% of its inhabitants. The north, on the contrary, is characterized by harsh nature and sparsely populated areas. The development of valuable minerals is the main specialization of the region, which determines its place in the Russian economy. Industrial centers associated mainly with the extraction of minerals are significantly removed from each other.

There are two most important factors that determine the position of the Far East in the system of Russian regions. First of all, the special economic and geographical position of the region. It is characterized by remoteness from the main, most populated and developed regions of the country, as well as marginality and limited contacts with the only neighbor - Eastern Siberia.

The second factor is a powerful resource potential. The Far East is one of the richest regions of Russia. This gives him the opportunity to occupy an important place in the country's economy in a number of raw material positions.

The development of the regions of the Far East for many years was strictly regulated from the center in order to ensure the defense security of the state, most regions of the region were closed zones, since significant potential for the needs of the military-industrial complex was created here for many years. As a result, for a long time, these regions were economically isolated to a large extent from the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, from their closest neighbors. In recent years, against the backdrop of the dynamically developing economies of many Asia-Pacific countries, the Far Eastern region of Russia, for a number of reasons, has found itself in a position of lagging behind.

So, despite the grandiose name - "an outpost of socialism on the Pacific coast", the Far East within the USSR played the role of a raw materials appendage and a means of solving military-political problems. Despite the declared regularity of the socialist mode of production - "pulling up lagging territorial links", in the Soviet period this region constantly lagged behind its neighbors - Western and Eastern Siberia in terms of economic growth

Geographical position

The Far East occupies a special place in Russia and the Asia-Pacific region and is a unique subcontinent of the Eurasian continent, washed from the north and east by the seas of the Arctic and Pacific oceans. The western border of the region runs from the confluence of the Shilka and Argun rivers (the beginning of the Amur River) through the Stanovoy, Dzhugdzhur and Kolyma Uplands to the Chaun Bay in the East Siberian Sea. From the south, the Far East borders on the territories of the PRC and the DPRK. Its extreme northern point is Cape Shelaginsky, the southernmost point is at the mouth of the Tyumen-Ula River.

The most important feature of the economic and geographical position of the Far Eastern economic region is its great remoteness from the main economic potential of Russia. The area is located on the eastern outskirts of the country, it is separated not only from Moscow, but even from the industrial centers of Siberia by distances measured by many thousands of kilometers.

The total area of ​​the Far East is 6215.0 thousand square meters. km. (36% of the country's area). The territory of the Far East stretches along the Pacific coast for 4500 km. Here are located the largest peninsula - Kamchatka (350 thousand sq. km.), the largest island of the country - Sakhalin (76.4 thousand sq. km.), the archipelago with the largest number of islands - the Kuriles and many other archipelagos and islands. The Far East has the longest coastline among the regions - 17.7 thousand km. (with islands).

The territory of the Far East is located in 4 time zones. AT I time zone (Kamchatka Oblast and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug), the difference between local and world time is +12h. (between local and Moscow time +9 h.) II belt (Magadan region) difference between local and world +11h. (+9 hours with Moscow). AT III (Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories) this difference is +10h. (+7 hours compared to Moscow); in IV time zone (Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Chita region) +9h. (+6 hours compared to Moscow).

Most of the Far East (about 75% of the territory) is occupied by plateaus and low uplands (up to 1000-2000 m). The Pacific coast is dominated by young mountains, plateaus, mountain ranges and ranges. The largest mountain formations are the Sikhote-Alin, Burensky, Verkhoyansky, Stanovoy, Dzhugdzhursky, Koryaksky ridges, as well as the Chukotka and Aldan highlands. There are 160 volcanoes in Kamchatka, 28 of which are active, and there are many geysers. Kamchatka and the Kuriles are part of the seismic belt. It is in Kamchatka that one of the largest active volcanoes in the world is located - Klyuchevskaya Sopka (4750 m). Plains and lowlands occupy only relatively small areas (about 25% of the territory), mainly along river valleys, and it is in these areas that the main economic life of the region is concentrated. Main plains: Zeya-Bureya, Sredneamurskaya, Prikhankayskaya, Central Yakutskaya.

There is a great variety of soils corresponding to the types of vegetation zones: in the tundra - tundra gley, marsh-peat, in the forest-tundra - swampy, podzolic-peaty, in the taiga - podzolic, marsh peat, peat-gley, in the southern zones - brown and brown-taiga, meadow- chernozem soils. Permafrost occupies up to 90% of the area of ​​the Far East, which makes construction and agriculture difficult.

The climate of the Far East is distinguished by a special contrast - from sharply continental (the whole of Yakutia, the Kolyma regions of the Magadan region) to monsoonal (southeast), which is due to the vast extent of the territory from north to south (almost 3900 km.) And from west to east (to 2500-3000 km.). This is determined by the interaction of continental and sea air masses of temperate latitudes. In the northern part, the climate is exceptionally harsh. Winter with little snow, lasts up to 9 months. The southern part has a monsoonal climate with cold winters and wet summers.

In winter, currents of cold air rush to the southeast from the powerful Asian High. In the northeast, along the outskirts of the Aleutian Low, the cold continental air of Eastern Siberia interacts with warm sea air. As a result, cyclones often occur, which are associated with a large amount of precipitation. There is a lot of snow in Kamchatka, blizzards are not uncommon. On the eastern coast of the peninsula, the height of the snow cover can sometimes reach 6 m. Snowfalls are also significant on Sakhalin.

In summer, air currents rush from the Pacific Ocean. Maritime air masses interact with continental air masses, as a result of which monsoon rains occur throughout the Far East in summer. The monsoon climate of the Far East covers the Amur Region and Primorsky Territory. As a result, the largest Far Eastern river, the Amur, and its tributaries flood not in the spring, but in the summer, which usually leads to catastrophic floods. Devastating typhoons often sweep over coastal areas, coming from the southern seas.

Population

In 1998, the total population living in the Far East was 7263.1 thousand people (in 1991 - 8057 thousand people) or 5.0% of the population of Russia.

The dynamics of the population in the Far East reflects the all-Russian trend, since 1991 there has been a constant decline in it. The rate of population decline for the period from 1992 to 1997 is from 1% to 2% per year, which is higher than the national figure (the most significant decrease in the population occurred in 1994 - by 2.1%). In 1998, compared with 1997, the population of the Far East decreased by 1.1%, while the reduction in the Russian Federation was 0.3%. The decrease in the number is influenced by the decrease in natural population growth and migration loss outside the region.

Since 1993, natural population growth has become negative, and the value of this factor, in general, the decline in population by 1996 was 22%. The rate of natural population loss after 1993 in the regions of the Far East amounted to 1-4 people per 1 thousand inhabitants. The exceptions are the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Here, in the course of the 1990s, a phenomenon unique for Russia has been observed – natural population growth. In 1998, for the first time since 1991, Kamchatka and Magadan oblasts experienced a slight natural increase in population (0.3 and 0.7 people per 1,000 inhabitants).

The largest population lives in Primorsky Krai, the share of Primorsky Krai in the total population living in the Far East increases compared to other regions (from 28.5% in 1991 to 30.2% in 1998). The Khabarovsk Territory ranks second in this indicator (21% in 1998).

The highest rate of population decline for the period from 1991 to 1997. were observed in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (15.1% in 1992 and 11.5% in 1994) and in the Magadan Region (9.9% in 1992). The most stable is Primorsky Krai, the decline in numbers was significantly below 1% and only in 1997 amounted to 1%. In the Khabarovsk Territory, the dynamics of population decline is also stable, although the rates are slightly higher than in Primorsky Territory: in 1991-98. the decline in numbers did not exceed 1.5% of the total population of the region per year.

In 1998 The largest population decline occurred in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (4.4%), in the Magadan Region (2.3%) and in the Sakhalin Region (1.9%). The smallest reduction was observed in the Khabarovsk Territory (0.7%), in the Amur Region and Primorsky Territory (0.8% each).

At the same time, the share of the population living in the Far East in the total population of Russia since 1991 to 1998 decreases. In 1998 this figure was 4.96% compared with 5.42% in 1991. The largest part of the population in 1998. lived in Primorsky Krai (1.5% of the population in the Russian Federation), the smallest - in the Koryak Autonomous Okrug (0.02% of the all-Russian indicator) and in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (0.06% of the all-Russian indicator).

Primorsky Krai has the highest population density (13.48 people per 1 sq. km.), the Koryak Autonomous Okrug has the lowest density (0.11 people per 1 sq. km.).

The main factor in the population decline is migration outside the Far East, mainly to the western regions of Russia for permanent residence. The migration loss reached the highest rates in the northern zone of the Far East - in Chukotka and in the Magadan Region, where in 1992-1995. migration outflow reached 6-12 people per 100 inhabitants. Cities were subjected to migration processes to the greatest extent, rural areas to the least extent.

January-November 1998 174334 people arrived in the Far East, mostly they entered the region from other regions of Russia (82.2% of the total number of those who entered the region). The largest number of migrants arrived in Primorsky Krai (32.7% of the total number of those who entered the region) and Khabarovsk Krai (18%). During the same period, 231,902 people left the Far East, mostly the population went to other regions of Russia (90.4% of the total number of those who left). The largest number of those who left - from Primorsky Krai (25.8% of the total number of those who left) and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) - (16.9%). Yakutia) - 17906 people, Sakhalin region - 9283 people and Kamchatka region - 5801 people. The population exchange with foreign countries for the Far East region was positive and amounted to 26 people. Among the territory of the Far East, the positive balance of population exchange with foreign countries was in Primorsky Krai (4169 people). However, here it is necessary to take into account the exchange of CIS countries and the remigration of the population.

The official number of refugees in the Far East as of January 1, 1999 was 8,751. The largest number of refugees arrive in Primorsky Krai (4135 people or 45.3% of the total number of refugees). The Amur region follows with a significant margin, 1677 refugees have arrived here so far (18.4% of the total). To a lesser extent, refugees seek to settle in the Magadan region - 205 people (2.3% of the total) and in Yakutia - 26 people (0.3% of the total). The real number of refugees, especially in the southern regions of the Far East, is much higher than the official figures.

In 1998, as in previous years, the urban population prevailed in the Far East (75.9% of the total). The rural population was 24.1%. The highest proportion of the population living in urban areas is observed in the Magadan region (89.9% of the total population) and in the Sakhalin region (85.8%). The smallest share of the population living in cities is in the Koryak Autonomous Okrug (24.8% of the total population) and in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) 64.4%. In total, as of January 1, 1999, 5512.3 thousand people lived in cities, and 1750.8 thousand people lived in rural areas.

The ratio between the urban and rural population in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories has practically not changed over the 1990s (78.1%/21.9% and 80.9%/19.1%, respectively, as of January 1, 1999). The proportion of the population living in the cities of the Amur Region has decreased (from 67.9% in 1991 to 65.6% in 1998), in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) (from 66.6% in 1991 to 64.4% in 1998 .).

The most urbanized are Primorsky Krai (29% of the total urban population of the Far East lives in cities) and Khabarovsk Krai (21.4% of the urban population of the Far East lives in cities)

The largest (by number) cities in the Far East are Vladivostok (626.5 thousand people in 1996) and Khabarovsk (616.3 thousand people in 1996)

Resources of the Far East

Mineral resources. The Far East has the largest reserves of mineral resources, in terms of the volume of reserves of which the region occupies a leading position in Russia. Far Eastern reserves of antimony, boron, tin account for about 95% of all reserves of these resources in Russia, fluorspar and mercury - up to 60%, tungsten - 24% and about 10% of the total Russian reserves of iron ore, lead, native sulfur, apatite.

The world's largest diamond-bearing province is located in the north-west of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia): the Mir, Aikhal, and Udachnoye diamond deposits account for over 80% of Russia's diamond reserves.

The proven reserves of iron ore in the south of Yakutia amounted to more than 4 billion tons (about 80% of the regional one), and the reserves of these ores are significant in the Jewish Autonomous Region. Large coal reserves are located in the Lena and South Yakutsk basins (Yakutia), in the Amur Region, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories.

The Far East region is one of the most important gold-bearing regions of Russia. Ore and placer gold deposits are concentrated in the Republic of Sakha, Magadan, Amur regions, Khabarovsk Territory and Kamchatka.

Tin and tungsten ores have been discovered and are being developed in the Republic of Sakha, the Magadan Region, the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories. The main industrial reserves of lead and zinc (up to 80% of the regional total) are concentrated in Primorsky Krai. A large titanium ore province (Kalarsko-Dzhugdzhurskaya) has been identified on the territory of the Amur Region and the Khabarovsk Territory. The main deposits of mercury are located in the Magadan region, Chukotka, Yakutia and the Khabarovsk Territory.

In addition to the above, there are reserves of non-metallic raw materials: limestone, marl, refractory clay, quartz sand, sulfur, graphite. In Tommot, on the upper Aldan, unique deposits of mica have been explored.

Forest resources. The forest resources of the Far East are large and varied. Forests here account for over 35% of the total Russian resources. The most common forests are larch forests, in which the main part of timber reserves is concentrated (more than 60%). This type of forest is common in Yakutia, the Amur and Magadan regions and the Khabarovsk Territory. Spruce-fir forests account for more than 5% of the area of ​​all forests and 12% of the wood reserves of the Far East. These forests predominate in Primorsky Krai and Sakhalin. The most valuable are cedar-broad-leaved forests (with the highest concentration of wood), which make up about 3 million hectares. They cover 1% of the territory of the Far East.

Of the forest resources of non-timber origin, it is worth noting the unique species of medicinal plants (ginseng, eleutherococcus, Manchurian aralia and others, in total - more than a thousand species), as well as hundreds of species of food plants, mushrooms, etc.

Land resources. The main resource to which all other species are tied is land resources. The land fund of the Far East is 616.9 million hectares. It lists five main land types: forests (45.5%), reindeer pastures (30.3%), agricultural land, and other land. There is a very small area of ​​land (1.1%) where agricultural production is possible. Of course, some increase in the area is possible due to the drainage of swamps, land reclamation, but this requires significant financial resources. Here, even at a fairly low density, there is only 1.32 hectares of agricultural land per capita, and these lands are infertile, waterlogged, uncomfortable, and require huge expenditures for melioration.

Territorially, land resources are unevenly distributed. So the main part of agricultural land is located in the south of the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories.

Water resources. The Far East is rich in sea, ocean and land resources. The seas belong to the basins of the Arctic and Pacific oceans. The rivers mainly belong to the basin of the two largest rivers - the Lena and the Amur, which flow into the Arctic and Pacific oceans, respectively, and they are so large that the tributaries flowing into them, in turn, are large rivers along which navigation is possible. The hydrographic network of the Far East includes many relatively small lakes.

The seas of the Far East: Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi (northern coast), Bering, Okhotsk, Japanese (east coast) - have a huge water area (over 3.5 million sq. km.) And a variety of natural resources, both biological and and mineral.

The Lena River begins in Eastern Siberia, but flows mainly through the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), its length is 4400 km, the basin area is 2490 thousand square meters. km., the average annual runoff is 488 cubic meters. km. In terms of water content, it ranks second in Russia after the Yenisei. The main tributaries of the Lena: Vilyui (2650 km.), Aldan (2273 km.), Vitim (1837 km.), Olekma (1436 km.), Nyuya (798 km.), Kirenga (746 km.), Big Patom (570 km. .).

The Amur River begins in Mongolia, but flows mainly through the Far East (Amur Region, Jewish Autonomous Region, Khabarovsk Territory). Its basin also includes the rivers of Primorsky Krai. The length of the Amur is 4440 km, of which 2.8 thousand km are in the Far East, the basin area is 1855 thousand square meters. km. (of which 922 thousand sq. km. fall on the territory of Russia), the average annual flow is 346 cubic meters. km. In terms of water content, the Amur ranks fourth in Russia after the Yenisei, Lena, and Ob. The main tributaries in the Far East: Zeya (1242 km.), Ussuri (897 km.), Amgun (723 km.), Selemdzha (647 km.), Bureya (623 km.), Bikin (560 km., a tributary of the Ussuri ), Tungusska with the rivers Kur and Urmi (544 km.).

There are also many rivers in the Far East that independently flow into the seas. The largest are: Olenyok (2292 km.), Kolyma (2129 km.), Indigirka (1726 km.), Alazeya (1590 km.), Anadyr (1150 km.), Anabar (939 km.), Yana (872 km. .) Kamchatka (785 km.) and Penzhina (713 km.). Their total average water discharge at the mouth is 14 thousand cubic meters. m per second.

There are many small lakes in the Far East (about 300 have a surface area of ​​more than 2 sq. km.). The largest of them is Lake Khanka, located in the Primorsky Territory (the surface area is over 4 thousand square kilometers). The shores of lakes are often swampy. The degree of mineralization of water in them is different - from fresh to salty.

Of the other water resources in the Far East, surface swampiness is widespread, which plays an important role in water regulation. Underground waters have frequent outlets of mineral and thermal springs.

In terms of overall moisture content, the Far East is provided with water resources for economic activity. The average water supply per inhabitant is 5 times higher than the average for Russia. But these numbers are misleading. The lowest water supply per inhabitant is in the Sakhalin Region and Primorsky Territory, the most densely populated areas of the region. Moreover, in the south of the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, as well as in some of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), where most of the population of the region lives, there is a real shortage of fresh water. This is due either to the freezing of rivers or to droughts during the intertyphoon period.

biological resources. The richness of the Far East in water and forest resources provides a variety of biological resources, which include the resources of the seas, rivers and lakes, as well as land resources.

Biological resources of the sea. The marine biological resources of the Far East are enormous, mainly concentrated in the 200-mile coastal zone and on the shelf of the Far Eastern seas. The total volume of fish and seafood in the Russian economic zone reaches 26 million tons, including 16 million tons of cod fish species (pollock, navaga, cod, hake, etc.), 3 million tons of herring, from 0.3 up to 0.7 million tons of flounder, perch, sardines, salmon, saury. Seafood stocks amount to 2.5 million tons - these are krill, squid, crab, trumpeter, scallop, anfeltia, shrimp, trepang, seaweed. These resources are unevenly distributed over the water area of ​​the Far Eastern seas. The most productive are the Sea of ​​Okhotsk (46% of production) and South Kuril (18% of production) fishing areas.

It is also necessary to highlight the diversity of marine animals. Seals, walruses, fur seals, sea otters live here, as well as whales and sperm whales.

Biological resources of land. The taiga, which occupies a significant part of the territory of the Far East, is home to a significant number of rare large animals. These include over 10 species of predators (tiger, brown and Himalayan bear, wolf, various species of lynx, leopard, etc.), about 40 species of fur-bearing animals (moose, wild boars, deer, roe deer, etc.) and up to 100 species of hunting birds .

The southern Ussuri taiga has the richest diversity of fauna, where about 700 species of animals coexist, among which there are both northern and southern species.

Flora and fauna. In the Far East, the boundaries of vegetation zones are very tortuous. Nevertheless, several main zones are distinguished: the zone of the Arctic tundra (islands and the coast of the Arctic Ocean), the tundra zone (Chukotka and Koryak Autonomous Okrugs, slightly - Yakutia), the forest-tundra zone. The zone of coniferous forests (taiga) has the largest area. To the south, there is a zone of coniferous-deciduous forests of the taiga, to mixed and broad-leaved forests in the south.

Animal world. The fauna of the Far East is diverse. Marine animals are of industrial importance: fish, mollusks, sea animals, etc. The most unique species of land animals are the Ussuri tiger, brown and Himalayan bears, East Siberian leopard, etc. About 40 species of fur-bearing animals live in the Far East. The most famous animal species of the Far East include squirrel, otter, ermine, hare, raccoon dog, weasel, fox, American mink, muskrat, arctic fox, sable, red deer, wild boar, musk deer, roe deer, elk, reindeer, bighorn sheep, and many others. Up to 100 species (often the rarest) birds nest here.

Reserves. The total area of ​​reserves in the Far East is 37.16 thousand km, or 1.19% of the region's territory. This is significantly higher than the similar indicator for Russia as a whole. The reserves are distributed unevenly by administrative divisions: in the Magadan region - 2, Kamchatka - 1, Sakhalin - 1, Amur - 2, Khabarovsk Territory - 2, Primorsky Territory - 5.

Hydrology and hydrographic network. The Far East is washed by the waters of the East Siberian, Chukchi, Okhotsk and Japan seas. Most rivers are characterized by a short length. The bulk of inland water resources belong to the basins of the two largest rivers - the Lena (tributaries of the Vilyui, Aldan, Vitim, Olekma, etc.) and the Amur (Zeya, Ussuri, Amgun, etc.). The rivers Olenek, Kolyma, Indigirka, Alazeya, Anadyr, Anabar, Yana, Kamchatka, Penzhina have independent basins. The hydrographic network of the Far East includes many relatively small lakes (about 300 of them occupy an area of ​​more than 2 square kilometers). The largest of them is Lake Khanka (4 thousand sq. Km.).

Recreational resources. This type of resource is due to a large number of other types of natural resources. Of the recreational resources, it is necessary to note beach and water (sandy and small-pebble beaches, coastal waters), health-improving and sports (unique conditions for sport fishing and hunting, winter sports and recreation, healing mineral and thermal springs, therapeutic mud, etc. ., the rarest types of microclimate and phytoncidity of individual territories), tourism (the relief provides opportunities for all types of tourism - hiking, horseback, water, automobile - of all categories of complexity, up to mountaineering). Practical nutritional and medicinal value are hydro-mineral resources. All administrative territories of the Far East have highly effective mineral waters. The most famous are the mineral waters of the Shmakovka (Primorsky Territory) and Kuldur (Jewish Autonomous Region) resorts.

In the southern part of the Far East, geographical and climatic conditions create potential for the development of tourism (including water and automobile) and recreation (including sea bathing).

Fuel and energy resources. The fuel and energy resources available in the Far East include large deposits of oil and gas, brown and hard coal, oil shale, hydropower resources and the deep heat of the Earth, wind, solar and ocean energy.

The main energy resource used in the Far East is coal. About 100 deposits have been explored in the region with proven reserves of 19.3 billion tons (63% - brown coal and 37% hard coal, among which 40% are coking. In addition, 9.1 billion tons of reserves have been preliminary estimated). Coal deposits are unevenly distributed across the territory of the Far East. More than 80% of probable resources and 42% of proven reserves are located in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

The main oil and gas reserves lie on the territory of two vast oil and gas provinces: Sakhalin (large deposits of gas and oil on the shelf) and Leno-Vilyui (natural gas reserves). Oil and gas basins and areas have been explored in Kamchatka, in the Magadan Region, the Khabarovsk Territory, as well as on the adjacent shelf of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, the Sea of ​​Japan and the Bering Sea (projected neti reserves are about 9 billion tons, of which more than 65% are on the shelf), but so far only fields on Sakhalin (high quality oil) are being developed. More than 60% of the natural gas reserves of the Far East are located in the Leno-Vilyui oil and gas province. The predicted resources in the entire Far East are estimated at approximately 25 trillion cubic meters. cube m.

The hydropower resources of the Far East are based on the potential of large and medium-sized rivers, which is estimated at about 270 billion kWh. The hydropower potential has not yet been fully exploited (taking into account the HPPs under construction by 6.6%), although its economic efficiency for many regions of the Far East is obvious.

The region also has the opportunity to create tidal power plants (the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk), power plants using geothermal waters (Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands), wind power plants (north, Amur Region, Primorsky Territory), and solar energy installations.

coal industry

Raw material base. The Far East has colossal reserves of brown and black coals. The predicted resources of the region, according to various estimates, are 1.2-1.8 trillion tons. The main resources (1.7 trillion tons) are concentrated in Yakutia, where about 900 coal deposits and manifestations are known. It accounts for 11% of the world's coal reserves and more than 30% of Russia's reserves. The most extensive coal-bearing deposits are located in the north-west of Yakutia, in the Lena coal basin. However, the mining and geological conditions of this region, its remoteness and lack of development do not allow us to consider the basin of the river. Lena is promising for a large-scale increase in coal production here, at least in the next decade. The same reasons will hinder the development of the coal mining industry in the Zyryansk region, located in the northeastern part of Yakutia, although its estimated resources are highly estimated - 30 billion tons.

The main raw material base of the coal industry of the Republic of Sakha, and indeed of the entire Far East, is the South Yakutsk coal basin, which, according to preliminary estimates, has 35 billion tons of coal, including high-quality power and coking coal. One of the technological advantages of the deposits of this basin is the occurrence of coal in thick (10-60 m) seams.

The coal industry of the Amur region has a significant raw material potential. More than 90 deposits and manifestations of hard and brown coal are known here, the total predicted resources of which reach 71 billion tons. However, due to the complex mining and geological conditions of the occurrence of coal-bearing strata, only 14 billion tons are considered suitable for production.

On Sakhalin, in the central and southern parts of the island, more than 60 deposits have been discovered with a total resource of 20 billion tons, including 12 billion tons (60%) of hard coal and 1.9 billion tons (9.5%) of coking coal. Almost half of the coal reserves lie at a depth of less than 300 m. At the same time, the mining and geological conditions of most deposits are complex: the bedding is steep, they are subject to severe tectonic disturbance, which reduces the economic efficiency of their development.

In the Khabarovsk Territory, industrial coal content is developed in the basin of the river. Bureya and to a lesser extent in the valley of the river. Gorin, north of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Local small-scale coal manifestations are also found in other regions of the region. The total predicted resources as of 1990 are estimated at more than 13 billion tons, of which 4 billion tons (30%) are coking coal.

Coal deposits in Primorsky Krai cover almost a tenth of the region's territory. There are about 100 coal deposits and occurrences here. At the same time, almost all hard coal deposits, with the exception of Sinegorskoye and Putsilovskoye, are classified as small, with resources of no more than 75 million tons. Among brown coal deposits, one - Bikinskoye - is classified as large-scale, 13 as medium-scale, and at least 20 as small-scale. The total predicted resources of Primorsky Krai are 4 billion tons.

The Magadan Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Koryak and Chukotka Autonomous Regions have much less raw material potential. However, the local coal reserves here are sufficient to fully cover the needs of these regions, subject to the commissioning of new explored deposits. The only region in the Far East with a scarce raw material base for the fuel industry remains the Kamchatka region. But given that the priority industry of Kamchatka both today and in the future is the fishing industry, which makes high demands on the ecological cleanliness of the spawning river basins, any large-scale development of coal mining is recognized as inexpedient here.

In comparison with the forecast (1.2-1.7 trillion tons), the explored reserves of coal in the Far East are small. The balance reserves of category A + B + C 1 amount to 18 billion tons, of which 1 billion tons do not meet world standards. Reserves of high-tech coals are estimated at 710 million tons.

Prepared for extraction and developed large coal deposits with reserves of 500-1000 million tons are located in Yakutia, the Amur Region, Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories:

Elga deposit of brown coal - 1500 million tons Neryungri deposit of coal - 600 million tons Chulmikanskoe deposit of coal - 1000 million tons Kangalasskoe deposit of brown coal - 1000 million tons Svobodnenskoye brown coal deposit - 1700 million tons Erkovetskoye brown coal deposit - 500 million tons (reserves of the Yuzhny site) Urgal coal deposit - 1000 million tons Bikinskoye (Nizhnebikinsky) brown coal deposit - 500 million tons

The share of these nine deposits in the total coal reserves of the Far East, put on the state balance sheet, is 49%. At the same time, 33% of explored reserves are in Yakutia.

Absolutely all types of coals are represented in the Far East, ranging from high-quality anthracites and cokes to low-calorie brown coals.

Primorsky Krai is distinguished by the greatest variety of technical grades of coal. Brown coals (B1, B2, B3) account for more than 80% of the production here. Among the hard coals of the Partizansky basin, grades Zh (fat) and T (lean) predominate, the share of which in the explored reserves is 55% and 25%, respectively. There are also gas (grade G), coke (K), long-flame (D), sintering and weakly sintering (C and SS), lean sintering (OS) bituminous coals. Guerrilla coals are easily enriched by the wet method. The Razdolnensky basin is rich in grade D coals and valuable anthracites (A). Among the anthracite deposits, Sinegorskoye has good prospects, where the balance reserves of anthracite fusenite coals (AF) reach 14 million tons. High-calorie grade D coals are mined at the Lipovets deposit. They contain an increased amount of resin bodies, which increases their value as a chemical raw material for the production of adhesives, bitumen, pyrolysis varnishes, solvents, epoxy resins, etc.

In the South Yakutsk basin, bituminous coals of grades Zh, K, KZh (coke fat), OS, SS are common. Medium-ash coals (11-15%), with a sulfur content of 0.2-0.4%, high-calorie, with a specific heat of combustion for working fuel of 23-24 MJ / kg.

In the Zyryansk coal basin, low-sulfur coals of grades SS and Zh are mined, which have a moisture content of 9%, an ash content of 14% and a lower calorific value (working fuel) of about 23%.

The deposits of the Lena Basin contain mainly brown coal with a wide range of qualities, accounting for 57% of the total predicted resources of the basin. Coals are low-ash (5-25%) and low-sulfur (0.2-0.5%), the calorific value of the working fuel varies within 14.5-24.2 MJ/kg.

Predominantly lignite deposits are also distributed on the territory of the Amur Region (Amur-Zeya basin). These are mainly coals of technological group B1. Hard coals, which make up 23% of the region's reserves, belong to grades G, SS, K. ​​Here there are both heavily watered coals (moisture content of more than 50% at the Tygdinskoye, Svobodnenskoye and Sergeevskoye deposits), and coals with low moisture content at the Ogodzhinsky and Arkharo-Boguchanskoye deposits (up to 9%). All coals are low-sulfur, ash content varies within 24-35% at Ogodzhinsky and Tolbuzinsky hard coal deposits and 17-18% at Yerkovetskoye and Svobodnenskoye lignite deposits. The highest calorific value (5-7 thousand kcal/kg for working fuel) is typical for Ogodzhinsky and Tolbuzinsky coals. The Tolbuzinskoye deposit is also suitable for the extraction of coking coal.

In the Khabarovsk Territory, coal deposits have been explored in large volumes, although the region, according to preliminary estimates, also has huge reserves of brown coal (the predicted resources of the Middle Amur region alone are estimated at 7 billion tons). The coals of the largest Urgal deposit in the region are gas (grade G6), high-ash (32%), low-sulphur (0.4%), are characterized by low humidity (7.5%) and high calorific value (19.97 MJ / kg for working fuel ). Difficulty in enrichment can be considered a significant drawback of the Urgal fuel. The predicted resources of coal suitable for coking are estimated at 4 billion tons.

The raw material base of Sakhalin provides great opportunities for the extraction of high-calorific coals of grades D, G and K. The coals of the Mgachinskoye, Lesogorskoye, Uglegorskoye, Lopatinskoye deposits are enriched by the wet method.

Almost all regions of the Far East have coal suitable for coking and chemical processing with the possibility of obtaining a wide range of products not yet produced in the region. Some deposits, in addition, are promising for the extraction of rare earth elements from coals, primarily germanium (Chulmikanskoye, Bikinsky, Pavlovskoye, Shkotovskoye, etc.)

From 1970 to 1990, coal production increased by 60.5%. The average annual growth rate in the industry during this period was 2.5%. The maximum production volume - 57.2 million tons - was reached in 1988, after which a sharp decline began in the coal industry of the Far East. During the period from 1990 to 1998, production decreased by more than one and a half times, which is associated with the general economic crisis in the country and the closure of many unprofitable mines. In general, the rate of decline in coal production in the region was lower than the average for Russia (with the exception of the Magadan region, where a three-fold drop was observed). Thanks to this, the Far East managed to maintain a fairly high share in the all-Russian coal production - about 12%.

The coal industry occupies a significant place in the sectoral structure of most regions. In Yakutia, Amur, Sakhalin, Magadan regions, to a lesser extent in Primorsky Krai. This is one of the leading sectors of the economy and in recent years, despite the decline in coal production, the share of the industry in the industrial structure of the regions has increased. Until 1980, the main supplier of fuel in the Far East was the Amur region, where more than 14 million tons were mined annually. All this volume was provided by sections of the Raichikhinsky brown coal deposit, which was operated for more than 50 years. With the depletion of its reserves and reaching the design capacity of the Bikinsky and Neryungri deposits, the leading positions in coal mining were taken by Primorye and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). In 1985-1990. these regions produced 14-18 million tons each. Their total share in production in the Far East was 63%. In 1998, coal production in Primorye and Yakutia decreased to 9.4 and 9.6 million tons, respectively, but due to a stronger decline in other regions, their total share in coal production increased to 70%.

The layout of coal mining enterprises, formed in the past decades, turned out to be ineffective in the market conditions. Up to 10 million tons of thermal coal were annually imported to the Far East. At the same time, local resources were not developed enough. Currently, the deficit of solid fuel in most regions remains. Large volumes of coal are imported to the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories (8-10 million tons each). The power industry of Kamchatka operates almost entirely on imported fuel (about 500,000 tons). Partially in other regions, Sakhalin buys coal. The Amur region, after the depletion of the Raichikhinsky deposit, is also faced with the need to import fuel from Eastern Siberia and Yakutia.

To strengthen the raw material base of Primorskaya GRES, the construction of the Luchegorsky-2 open-pit mine with a capacity of 1.5 million tons per year has begun. The electric power industry of the southern part of the Primorsky Territory will be fed by the Pavlovsky brown coal deposit, where in the coming years it is planned to bring two mines to their design capacity - Pavlovsky-2 (4.5 million tons) and Severo-Zapadny (450 thousand tons). . in year).

The electric power industry of the Amur Region is gradually switching to Boguchansky and Erkovetsky coal grades B1. In the longer term, it is planned to bring into operation the Svobodnensky lignite deposit in combination with the new state district power station (open mining of 10-15 million tons per year is possible), as well as the large-scale development of higher-quality Ogodzhi coal (more than 3 million tons per year) .

The coal industry of the Khabarovsk Territory will expand its potential due to the further development of the colossal reserves of the Urgalsky and Bikinsky deposits, where existing projects provide for an increase in coal production by 2.3 million tons per year by open pit and by more than 1 million tons by underground mining.

On Sakhalin, the almost completely depleted Vakhrushevskoye deposit, the coal from which the Sakhalinskaya GRES operated and which once provided almost a third of the region's needs for thermal coal, is being replenished by a gradual increase in production at the Solntsevskoye deposit.

In recent years, great efforts have been made to create competitive coal mining enterprises based on small open pits. Particular attention is paid to this direction in the Primorsky, Khabarovsk Territories, in the Magadan Region, Koryaksky and Chukotka Autonomous Okrugs. The implementation of the "Small cuts" program in Primorye will, according to its developers, increase coal production in the region by 1.5 million tons. In the northern regions, the development of local small deposits should lead to a significant reduction in the share of expensive imported coal and stabilize the work of public utilities.

The coal industry of the Far East in the coming years will have to overcome a number of serious problems, which, however, are characteristic of the entire fuel industry in Russia. The main one is to increase the efficiency of production in the extractive sector through the technical and technological renovation of coal companies and the restructuring or closure of unprofitable enterprises. The policy of the state in solving this problem is aimed at turning the coal industry into a non-subsidized or low-subsidized industry. At the same time, the federal government does not have sufficient investment resources to help companies carry out technical and technological modernization. For this reason, the restructuring of the industry was reduced, in fact, to the closure of unprofitable mines and reorientation to open-pit mining. This process affected almost all regions of the Far East, with the exception of the Amur Region, where coal was originally mined in open pits. Currently, almost 90% of coal is mined in the Primorsky Territory, while in Russia as a whole, open mining accounts for 62%. More economical open-pit mining is intensively increasing in the Khabarovsk Territory and the Sakhalin Region. However, in strategic terms, this process has an obvious drawback: the closure of mines leads to a reduction in the share of high-quality coal in production and a decrease in the value of coal products.

Export potential of the industry. The presence of the coal-mining enterprises of the Far East in the foreign market over the past ten years has not only not increased, but has become even less noticeable than at the beginning of economic reforms. On a relatively large scale, export supplies of coal and coke are carried out by Yakutia. The maximum volume of export of Neryungri coals - 8 million tons - was reached in 1990. Primorsky (max. 89.9 thousand tons in 1996) and Sakhalin (80 thousand tons in 1995) are supplied to the external market in incomparably smaller quantities. d) coal. On a very limited scale, coal is also exported from the Amur Region.

The geography of export supplies of Far Eastern coal is Japan, South Korea, China and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

Mining industry.

The mining industry of the region is the extraction of gold, diamonds, tin-bearing, tungsten, lead-zinc and other ores, the production of non-ferrous metals, as well as ferrous metallurgy.

It is obvious that the mining industry is guided by the reserves of raw materials, therefore, the centers of the mining industry are located near rich deposits of raw materials. Also of great importance are the following 2 factors: the factor of natural conditions and the environmental factor.

The extraction of non-ferrous metals grew rapidly in the Far East, and even now it is not experiencing such a significant decline as in other industries. The main part of the country's tin is mined in the Far East, the region's share in the all-Russian mining of gold, silver, tungsten, lead, zinc, mercury, fluorite, bismuth and other valuable minerals is significant.

The “Queen of the Far East” continues to be the gold mining industry, which is one of the oldest branches of the national economy of the region. Enterprises of this industry are located throughout the Far East. It has long been carried out in the basins of the Zeya, Selemdzhi, Bureya, Amgun rivers, in the mountains of the Aldan Highlands, Khingan and Sikhote-Alin. Now new areas have become gold mining areas - Kolyma-Indigirsky and Chukotsky; in the first, gold mining was started in the 30s, in the second - in the 60s. The Magadan region and the Republic of Sakha give 2/3 of all gold in Russia. The oldest gold mining area is the Amur Region. It was she who at one time created world fame for the Far East as the largest gold-bearing region. And today the Amur region gives the country a lot of gold. The main method of gold mining here is the cheapest, dredge. The Kolyma-Indigirsky mining region is connected by a highway with Magadan and Yakutsk, and by sea with the south of the Far East region. Placement of gold mining is focal in nature. The boundaries of the centers are determined by the areas of distribution of ore formations and alluvial gold of the developed deposits, the creation of common service areas and infrastructure for a certain group of mines: power plants, construction, repair, supply and trade bases, schools with boarding schools, medical institutions, etc. Such a focal nature of the mining industry is characteristic, by the way, of other northern regions of the Far East.

Extraction and enrichment of tin-bearing ores in the Far East are also common in many places. In terms of tin mining, the Khabarovsk Territory became one of the leading regions of the country after the war. The first-born of the tin mining industry here is the Khingalovo plant, which in 1948 produced the first concentrate at its processing plant. In the 1960s, the Solnechny tin mining and processing plant was put into operation in the Khabarovsk Territory. Now two quarries and a processing plant are operating at this plant. In addition to Chukotka, mining and enrichment of tin-bearing ores are carried out in the Verkhne-Ayansky region of Yakutia, where ores with the highest tin content are mined at the Deputatsky Combine, and therefore cheaper than in other places in Russia. Tin-bearing ores are also mined in the west of the Jewish Autonomous Region and near Komsomolsk. But their extraction was especially significant in the south of Sikhote-Alin, in the Dalnegorsk-Kavalerovo region. A large complex of various mining industries has developed here. Even before the revolution, gold mining and the development of lead-zinc ores began, and during the Soviet years several tin mining and processing enterprises were built. The area has a developed transport network, unified bases for the repair of mining equipment.

With the commissioning of the Plamennoye mine in the Magadan region in the Far East, a new industry has emerged - the extraction of mercury. In the 1970s, new mercury deposits were discovered in the Koryak Highlands. In 1959, the Iultin mining plant in Chukotka was put into operation and this marked the beginning of the tungsten industry in the Far East.

The efficiency of non-ferrous metallurgy largely depends on how timely the technical equipment of enterprises will be brought into line with the changing nature of the raw material base. Thus, the decrease in the cost of gold mining, which was outlined in the late 70s and early 80s, is associated with the creation of powerful mining equipment for the development of deposits with a low metal content, deep placers in frozen soils at low temperatures. In the open-pit mining of placers, the main role will be played by an increase in the capacity of earth-moving machines, the introduction of high-performance hydraulic elevators, mass conveying, etc. Preparation for a wider use of the ore resource base requires finding the best ways to develop primary deposits, creating equipment for the conditions of the Far East. Non-ferrous metal ores are usually complex. Therefore, one of the important tasks is the extraction of not only basic metals, but also associated elements contained in ores.

Fish farm.

The fishing industry of the Far East reached its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, it accounted for almost 1/3 of the all-Union catch of fish, sea animals and seafood. Nowadays, the situation has not worsened at all, now the Far Eastern seas provide about 60% of fish production in the Russian Federation, and even now, in our difficult time, canned fish, canned seafood, fresh-frozen fish, salted herring and some other types of fish products are supplied from here to many regions of the country, as well as for export. Since the 1970s, fishermen have moved from passive coastal fishing to active fishing in the open seas and oceans. The areas of active fishing are the Bering and Okhotsk Seas (fish and sea animals), the Sea of ​​Japan (fish), the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and Antarctica. Crabs are caught in the waters surrounding the southern and western parts of Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands. A crab cannery has been created, the products of which are in demand on the world market. Currently, the basis of the fishing industry is active fishing in the open seas, which is occupied by a large fishing, fish processing and transport-refrigeration fleet. Ocean fishing has significantly expanded the range of fish products: sea bass, hake, hake, halibut, saury, tuna, sable fish and such fairly new types of seafood as shrimp, squid, scallops, mussels.

The most important factor in the orientation of the fishing industry is raw materials, that is, the entire industry as a whole is oriented towards the coast (this applies to the coastal economy).

The fishing industry of the Far East in pre-perestroika times produced more than 700 types of products, including world-famous caviar, salmon, and canned crab. All this was achieved due to the fact that the fishing industry received a new fishing and transport fleet. At that time, the Far East had the largest fleet of large freezing fishing trawlers (BMRT) in the USSR. Currently, most of these vessels are morally and physically obsolete, and the arrival of new vessels is extremely rare. But, despite this, a fairly powerful coastal fishing industry continues to function - fleet bases, fishing ports, ship repair plants, fish processing plants, refrigerators.

For a long time, the growth of the fishing industry was held back by the fact that its coastal base could not cope with the processing of all the fish delivered by the fishing fleet. With the transition to active sea fishing, when ships go fishing for a long time, the processing of catches is carried out mainly directly at sea on large herring floating bases with artificial cooling of holds, floating crab canning plants and refrigerators. The increase in the capacity of refrigerators made it possible to produce much more fresh-frozen products. If in 1958 frozen products accounted for less than 1/3 of all fish processing products, then in 1968 it was already almost 2/3. In the 1980s, the technique and technology of processing fish at fish factories was improved, complex mechanization was introduced at the acceptance and processing of raw fish, harvesting and shipment of fish products. Salting of chum salmon and pink salmon remained very time consuming for a long time: it was necessary to perform manually up to 10 different operations. Now salmon are salted in chilled circulating brines, and the savings on the salting of each 1000 centners of chum salmon is more than 1.5 thousand rubles (1975).

About half of all fish products in the Far East come from Primorsky Krai. A special place in its fishing industry is occupied by crab canning and whaling, which, by the way, is now almost completely stopped under the moratorium on the conservation of the whale population, which was recently signed by the Russian Federation. Other large fishing areas in the Far East are Kamchatka and Sakhalin (they provide 2/5 of the total catch approximately equally). On Sakhalin, for example, the fishing industry provides more than one-third of the total gross industrial output of the region. So, in 1985, in one day, Sakhalin gave the country 13-15 thousand centners of fish and about 250 thousand cans of canned food (in terms of conditional). The fishing industry of the Khabarovsk Territory is represented by 6 fish processing plants and 10 fish factories, in addition, about 50 fishing collective farms are engaged in fishing. The importance of fishing in the Magadan region has grown. Of the fishing bases, one can single out the bases of the Vladivostok-Nakhodka and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky complexes, which play the main role in the catch and processing of fish. A special role in the fisheries of the Far East is played by the Amur River, in its waters there are such valuable fish species as kulaga, whitefish, silver carp, grass carp, etc.

In the fishing industry, the main task is to eliminate the disproportion in the development of the fleet and its coastal base. In the future, the expansion of ocean fisheries will be accompanied by an increase in coastal fishing. Great importance is attached to measures for the protection and breeding of salmon fish. One of the promising areas is the commercial breeding of scallops and other mollusks, as well as algae. An increase in fish catch will be accompanied by the processing of low-quality fish raw materials into products of increased nutritional value using a new technology.

Forestry, woodworking, pulp and paper industry.

The vast forest wealth of the Far East (about 11 billion cubic meters) led to the creation of one of the largest logging and wood processing complex here, the effectiveness of which is determined by the concentration of large forest resources, including many valuable species of wood, with a high proportion of mature and overripe trees. In 1969, the export of timber in the Far East amounted to 24 million cubic meters. (including 20 million cubic meters - business), and in 1993 - 35 million cubic meters. This industry was not particularly affected by the decline in production, and according to some data, the removal of timber in 1995 slightly exceeded the same indicator in 1993. In the southern part of the Far East - in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, the Amur and Sakhalin Regions - 54 sq.m. out of every 100 sq.m. territory. The main logging bases are located in the territories adjacent to the Lower and Middle Amur and the entire Ussuri, to the middle Zeya and Bureya, in the center and south of Sakhalin and in the upper reaches of the Lena river basin. A new timber industry base is currently being created in the area adjacent to the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

The factor of raw materials is of decisive importance for the location of the timber industry, and the factor of areas where finished products are consumed is of great importance. Two factors have an equally strong influence on the location of the woodworking industry: raw materials and areas of consumption of finished products. The location of the pulp and paper industry is of decisive importance for the factor of raw materials, and two factors are equally weak: fuel and energy resources and areas where finished products are consumed.

Most of the wood - over 40% - is harvested by the Khabarovsk Territory (it provides more than 40% of lumber, 70% of plywood and more than 20% of cardboard), almost 20% - Primorsky and about 10% each - Sakhalin, Amur Region and Yakutia. Larch, spruce, cedar and fir are mainly cut down, and in the Amur and Ussurye - and broad-leaved forests; small-leaved forests are used very little. Among the forest products exported from the Khabarovsk Territory, it is necessary, first of all, to name standard houses, plywood, containers, parquet, coniferous vitamin flour, fodder yeast, ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. In Primorsky Krai, a significant increase in timber harvesting, the production of sawn timber, plywood, fiberboard and chipboard occurred in the 70s - 80s. Approximately then, new capacities came into operation at the Iman woodworking plant, Artyomovsky and Imansky sawmills, the Ussuriysk woodworking plant, etc. Cities such as Lesozavodsk and Iman became centers of woodworking. Their products - lumber, plywood, furniture, parquet, prefabricated houses, barrels, boxes, skis, chipboard and fiberboard - are in great demand. About 2/3 of wood and products of its processing are sent to other regions and for export to Japan, Cuba (in 1993-1995, deliveries to Cuba decreased quite significantly), Australia and other countries.

Of the coniferous trees, the most valuable are Dahurian larch, Ayan spruce, Siberian and Korean fir. Their wood can be used for pulp, varnish, red paint, adhesives and tannins, and as timber. Korean cedar is widespread in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories. Its wood is light, has a beautiful pinkish tint, is strong enough and can be easily processed. It is used in the wood chemical industry to produce turpentine, rosin, valuable coniferous oil, and good plywood can also be made from it. Black fir is of great economic importance. Of great value are deciduous trees - oak, birch, poplar and especially linden and ash. Ash wood, distinguished by its strength and beauty of the pattern, is used for the production of high-quality plywood; it is also used in machine and shipbuilding.

There are tree species in the Far East that occupy small areas, but play a significant role in the economy. Such, for example, is Amur velvet, from which corks, insulating boards, linoleum, etc. are made. Very beautiful and durable Amur walnut wood is highly valued in carpentry, furniture and plywood industries. Of the numerous types of birches common in the Far East, the so-called iron birch, which is not inferior to boxwood in terms of hardness, should be especially distinguished. Weaving shuttles are made from yellow birch, which also has hardwood. White birch wood is good for plywood and furniture production.

Transportation of Far Eastern timber to the west, through the forest-rich regions of Siberia, where the cost of its harvesting is lower, is economically unprofitable (the exception is high-value wood species that are not available in other regions of the country). The level of development of the forestry and woodworking industry does not yet fully correspond to the opportunities available here. In the logging industry, the parameters of actual deforestation are lower than the size of the allowable cutting area (approximately 1/3), that is, there are large reserves for increasing logging. A lot of broad-leaved wood remains not exported, while conifers are completely exported. Conditionally clear cuts sometimes take on an extensive scale, which adversely affects the restoration of forest resources. The noted circumstances are associated with the delay in the construction of logging roads, the fragmentation and insufficient production capacity of logging organizations, and the lag in the development of deep mechanical and chemical processing of wood raw materials. The available calculations show that in the Far East, for every thousand cubic meters of wood produced, much less processed wood products are produced than in a number of western regions of the country. The insufficient level of development of wood processing leads to the export of unreasonably large amounts of roundwood to European regions, which leads to high transport costs and increases the load density of railway transport communications in the western direction. In addition, practically no waste from the logging site and woodworking is used. Therefore, in the forestry, pulp and paper and woodworking industries, back in the 80s, a course was taken to organize production for the complete processing of wood. The development of chemical-mechanical and chemical processing of wood will make it possible to make fuller and more rational use of timber resources, increase the yield of the most important types of products from each cubic meter of harvested wood, and increase the efficiency of the industry. The integrated use of wood raw materials would make it possible to reduce transport costs by transporting more qualified wood products, save a lot of valuable wood, and increase the efficiency of the timber and woodworking industries. Available data show that out of 1000 cu. m of commercial wood receive 450 cubic meters. plywood and 500 cu. m of waste, from which 320 cubic meters can be made. particle boards. These boards and plywood are enough to replace 2000 cubic meters. lumber, which requires 3000 cubic meters. business wood. The Far East has all the necessary conditions for the extensive development of the mechanical and chemical processing of wood: the richest forest resources, fuel and energy, a good supply of water, free land for industrial construction.

One of the main directions for increasing the economic efficiency of the forestry and woodworking industry of the Far East is the creation not of separate isolated, albeit powerful enterprises, but of large timber industry complexes consisting of wood harvesting facilities and its consistent and deep mechanical and chemical processing.

Achieving the planned production volumes requires the expansion of existing and construction of new enterprises. Such a peak occurred in the 70s - 80s. Then the Sovgavansky, Amgunsky, Padalinsky timber industry enterprises, the Lithuanian plywood plant, the Birobidzhansky sawmill, the Khorsky hydrolysis and yeast plant, the house-building shop at the Khorsky timber processing plant, the Tungussky and Mukhinsky house-building factories and many other industries came into operation.

The timber and woodworking industries are the most developed in the Far East. They have received especially great development in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories, in the Republic of Sakha, Amur and Sakhalin Regions, from where a significant part of sawn timber is exported. The pulp and paper industry is developed in South Sakhalin, which is the leader in the production of paper in the entire Eastern Economic Zone. The production of cardboard is located in the Khabarovsk Territory (Amursk) and on Sakhalin, plywood - in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories. The woodworking industry is also represented by housing construction, the production of packaging, furniture, plywood and hydrolysis plants, but these industries are underdeveloped. This hinders the further development of logging, since the transportation of roundwood over such long distances to the European part is inefficient, roundwood is also unprofitable for export. Therefore, in the future, constant attention will be paid to the expansion of highly qualified wood processing, including in the area of ​​the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

Power industry

Industry development. In the sectoral structure of the economy of the regions of the Far East, the energy industry occupies a very prominent place - from 12.7% in the Primorsky Territory to 37% in the Magadan Region. In terms of the cost of fixed production assets, this is one of the most capacious areas of the national economy. In the Magadan and Amur regions, for example, up to 40% of all OPFs are concentrated in the energy sector. In Primorsky and Khabarovsk krais, whose economies are more diversified, the electric power industry accounts for about 10% of the OPF. Nevertheless, the electric power industry in the Far East is not a branch of specialization. Its high share today is due to a sharper decline in production in other industries.

The maximum value of electricity generation in the history of the Far Eastern energy industry was reached in 1991 - 48.1 billion kWh. This is 4.6 times more than in 1970. The average annual growth rate of electricity generation in 1970-1991 were higher than the average for Russia, and amounted to 7.5%. Such a high dynamics during this period is associated with the implementation of electrification programs for the Trans-Siberian Railway, as well as the growth of energy consumption in industry and the residential sector. After 1991, there is a gradual decline in electricity generation caused by the general economic crisis in the country. During the period from 1991 to 1997, the drop in production in the electric power industry of the Far East amounted to 21.3%, while in the entire industry it was more than 50%. In general, the annual decline rates here were higher than the average for Russia, which indicates a more depressed state of the region's economy.

By the end of 1998, the total installed capacity of the electric power industry in the Far East reached 13.4 million kW. Electric energy is generated by more than 8,800 installations, both public and departmental. At the same time, about 85% of energy is produced by public power plants owned by large energy companies that are part of the structure of RAO "UES of Russia". The region is characterized by the presence of a large number of low-power diesel plants operating in remote and hard-to-reach settlements.

The Far East belongs to the regions with a low level of energy consumption per capita. In 1990, the gross per capita electricity consumption here was 5,800 kWh, while the Russian average was 7,254 kWh. By 1996, energy consumption in the region had dropped to 4785 kWh per capita, that is, by 18% compared to 1990. At present, the average per capita electricity consumption in the Far East is 1.3-2.7 times less than in industrialized countries.

Despite the rapid development of the Far Eastern energy industry in previous decades, the industry remains a weak link in the region's economy. Due to the lack of available funds, technical and technological renewal has practically ceased in recent years. Many energy facilities started in the 1980s have been frozen or are being built at an extremely slow pace. The crisis of the payment system has exacerbated the situation with the provision of the Far East with fuel raw materials. Low-cost types of energy have not yet become a priority in the region's economy. As a result of all this, the cost of energy in the Far East is at least 4 times higher than in neighboring Siberian regions that make the most of the hydropower potential (Irkutsk Region, Krasnoyarsk Territory).

The electric power industry in its current state exerts powerful price pressure on the cost structure in industrial sectors and ultimately makes the products of the Far Eastern enterprises uncompetitive in the domestic and world markets.

Energy systems. In the Far East, generating capacities and transmission networks are combined into six power systems. The largest of them cover Primorsky Krai (installed capacity 2692 thousand kW) and the Republic of Sakha (2036 thousand kW). The remaining energy systems have a capacity of less than 2 million kW.

From the point of view of energy supply, some regions of the Far East, due to their geographical location, are isolated and self-sufficient. Sakhalin and Kamchatka regions have absolutely closed energy systems. Small power flows from the Magadan region to the northernmost regions of Yakutia and to the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug are possible. The energy systems of the southern zone form a single power grid "Vostok", which allows you to regulate the energy balance in the regions, but has no access to the Russian main power lines.

Traditionally, the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories were energy deficient in this network, where approximately 80% and 95% of intra-regional electricity needs were covered by their own generating capacities. The missing electricity came from the Amur Region and Yakutia. During peak hours, the energy deficit in the Primorsky Territory was covered by overflows from the neighboring Khabarovsk Territory. In recent years, due to a sharp drop in industrial production, the Khabarovsk Territory has become energy surplus, and the consumption deficit in Primorye has decreased to 5%.

In power networks, voltages of 110 and 220 kV are usually used. Main transmission lines with a voltage of 500 kV. are federal property. Most regions have a high degree of centralized power supply.

Industry outlook. Further development of the electric power industry in the Far East is dictated by the need for technical modernization, wider use of highly profitable types of energy and cheap local resources.

Within the framework of traditional energy, in the future it is planned to strengthen the role of hydroelectric power plants in providing the region with electricity and heat. To do this, in the Amur region, 102 km from the village. In Novobureisk, the Bureyskaya HPP with a design capacity of 2000 thousand kW is being built. The average annual output at this power plant will be 7.1 billion kWh. Most of the work at the Bureyskaya HPP has been completed. Its commissioning will make it possible to compensate for the closure of thermal power plants with worn-out equipment and provide cheaper electricity to the neighboring Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories. In addition, it is planned to build another hydroelectric power station in the northwestern part of the Amur Region - on the river. Gilyuy. In the Magadan region, the Ust-Srednekanskaya HPP with a design capacity of 1,000 thousand kW is under construction. With its commissioning, the generating capacity of the region will increase by one and a half times.

In order to ensure sustainable and cost-effective energy supply to hard-to-reach areas in Primorsky Krai and Kamchatka Oblast, it is planned to continue the construction of small hydropower plants. In Kamchatka, in addition to small HPPs in the Bystrinsky district, a cascade of small HPPs is being built on the Tolmacheva River, which will include three stations with a total capacity of 45,000 kW.

On Sakhalin, in connection with the large-scale development of oil and gas fields in the near future, power plants operating on natural gas will receive priority development. In 1996, the construction of the Nogliki gas turbine station began here. Located 6 km from the main gas pipeline Dagi-Katangli-Nogliki, it will consume up to 71 million cubic meters. m of gas per year and have a capacity of 72 thousand kW. In the future, it is planned to expand the Okhinskaya CHPP, which will be supplied with additional combined-cycle boilers with a unit capacity of 80,000 kW. At the same time, the now isolated Okhinsky energy center is supposed to be connected to the Central Energy Grids, thereby completing the formation of a unified energy system on Sakhalin. The laying of a gas pipeline to the south of the island will create conditions for the construction of the Sakhalin State District Power Plant-2 with steam-gas generators with a capacity of 345,000 kW. The new power plant will make it possible to gradually decommission the current state district power plant, which has exhausted its technical resource. It is also planned to transfer CHPP-1 in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, which currently runs on coal, to more economical and environmentally friendly gas fuel.

Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Oblast also have gasification programs for the electric power industry. In the Khabarovsk Territory, power facilities located along the current Okha-Komsomolsk gas pipeline and near the Komsomolsk-Khabarovsk gas pipeline under construction will be switched to gas fuel. In Kamchatka, there are projects for the development of the gas fields of the peninsula with the simultaneous conversion of existing thermal power plants to gas fuel, which today operate on expensive imported coal. First of all, it is planned to transfer the power plant in the Sobolevsky district (12 thousand kW) to the combined cycle technology. Currently, with the participation of Japanese companies, projects are being developed for the installation of gas-fired boiler units with a capacity of 400-500 tons of steam per hour at the Vladivostok CHPP and two gas-oil power units of 100,000 kW each at Partizanskaya GRES.

The strategy for the development of the energy sector of the Far East assumes the widespread use, where possible, of non-traditional energy sources. It is planned to build several geothermal stations in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands, including the Verkhnemutnovskaya Geothermal Power Plant with an installed capacity of 12 thousand kW (the first unit was put into operation in 1998), the Mutnovskaya Geothermal Power Plant of four power units with a total capacity of 80 thousand kW. At the operating Pauzhetskaya GeoTPP, as part of its modernization program, it is planned to introduce additional generators, as a result of which the plant's installed capacity will increase by 21,000 kW.

In the long term, with a significant increase in electricity consumption by industry, it may be necessary to build nuclear and tidal power plants. NPP sites have been selected in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, pre-project studies have been carried out. Areas favorable for the construction of a TPP are located on the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk in the Khabarovsk Territory. There are quite detailed studies of projects for the construction of tidal power plants in the Tugur and Penzha bays, where tidal fluctuations in sea level reach 13-14 m. The average capacity of the Penzha TPP according to the project is 11,500 thousand kW. Together with the Tugur TPP (10,000 thousand kW), it can, in principle, fully satisfy the future needs of the south of the Far East for electricity.

Light industry

The share of light industry in the total production of the Far East is less than 1%. The light industry of the Far East is represented by textile, knitwear, leather and footwear and other industries, the enterprises of which are located mainly in large and medium-sized cities.

A significant decline in production in the 1990s was caused by the non-competitiveness of the bulk of products and the reorientation of demand for imported products.

Water transport

Sea ports. Maritime transport plays an important role in the economy of the Far East and Russia as a whole. Through the seaports, the export flows of Russian goods to world markets and the supply of imported products from the countries of the Asia-Pacific region to Russia are ensured. In addition, for some regions (Magadan, Kamchatka, Sakhalin regions, the northern regions of the Khabarovsk Territory), sea transport is practically the only way to deliver goods there.

There are 32 seaports along the coast of the Far East, including 22 commercial and 10 fishing ports, as well as about 300 harbors with piers and anchorages. In total, there are about 270 commercial enterprises performing port functions in the region.

The most important ports with year-round navigation are (from south to north): Zarubino, Posyet, Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Vostochny, Vanino, Magadan, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, on Sakhalin - Korsakov and Kholmsk.

The main port facilities are concentrated in the Primorsky, Khabarovsk Territories and the Sakhalin Region. Large ports located here can process up to 100 million tons of cargo per year. In 1997, the volume of cargo they received amounted to 28 million tons, which is equal to 74% of the total cargo turnover of the ports of the Far East.

According to data for 1997, up to 58% of the processed cargo is exported, and 3.9% imported. Coastal cargoes account for 19.5%. The ports of the Far North and Sakhalin are mainly focused on cabotage. The share of cabotage in the port of Magadan is 80%, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - 85.9%, Kholmsk - 99%. In the commercial ports of Vladivostok and Vanino, where cabotage cargoes also played an important role in the past decades, their share has now greatly decreased: in Vladivostok - to 9%, Vanino - to 38%.

Export flows from the Far East coast are formed due to the supply of timber, fish and seafood, metal, coal, and ore to the Asia-Pacific countries. Food products prevail in the commodity structure of imported cargoes.

There are two sea ferry crossings in the Far East - "Vanino-Kholmsk", which has been operating since 1973, and a crossing from Korsakov to the island of Hokkaido (Japan), opened in 1995. The volume of traffic from Vanino to Kholmsk in 1988, when ten ferries operated at the crossing, reached 5.5 million tons. In recent years, no more than 1.3 million tons of cargo have been transported by four ferries plying on this route.

The largest ports of the region - Vladivostok, Nakhodkinsky, Vostochny, Vanino - have access to the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal-Amur Mainline, which predetermines their role as points of attraction for transit cargo flows through Russia to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In 1997, 22 thousand international containers were transported along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Currently, a transport hub is being formed in the south of Primorsky Krai to serve transit cargo going from the northern provinces of China and Mongolia to the Asia-Pacific countries and back. In addition to the well-equipped ports of Nakhodka and Vladivostok, capable of handling almost any cargo, this transport hub will also include the Zarubino seaport, which received international status a few years ago. The port of Zarubino is located 70 km from the border with China and at the shortest distance from North Korea. Traditionally, the cargoes processed by it are metal products, timber, and fish. Focusing on attracting transit cargo from China and Mongolia, the port built a woodchip transshipment complex and started building terminals for processing grain and containers. By 2002, the port of Zarubino plans to increase its cargo turnover to 1 million tons, including 250,000 tons of wood chips, 250,000 tons of grain and 150,000 tons of container cargo. In the port area, an intensive reconstruction of the railway and motor transport infrastructure is underway, adapted for the efficient servicing of transit flows.

The port infrastructure of the Sakhalin Region will be further developed. Here, in addition to the reconstruction of the main Sakhalin ports - Kholmsk and Korsakov - it is planned to build two new ports. One of them, in the city of Shakhtersk, on the western coast of the island, will become the base port for the export of coal from the Solntsevsky lignite deposit, the largest in the region, located 35 km from Shakhtersk, the other, in Nabil Bay, on the western coast of the island, will specialize in reloading Sakhalin oil to foreign consumers. (Currently, reloading work is being carried out here from the raid.)

The project for the construction of an oil loading terminal in De-Kastri (Chikhachev Bay, Khabarovsk Territory) is also connected with the implementation of international projects for the development of Sakhalin oil and gas fields. The Okha-Komsomolsk-on-Amur oil and gas pipeline passes through this place, and in the future, when the development of the western oil fields of Sakhalin begins, the De-Kastri oil loading port may become the most convenient point for further transportation of Sakhalin oil to domestic and foreign markets.

Sea transport. About 200 shipping companies are registered in the Far East, owning a total of slightly more than 1,000 ships for ocean, coastal and intra-port navigation. The vast majority of them are small, having one or two vessels or renting vessels. On the basis of the seaports of Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Kholmsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsk, Tiksi, the largest shipping companies operate: Far Eastern (FESCO), Primorskoye, Vostoktransflot, Sakhalinskoye, Kamchatskoye and Arkticheskoe. These companies together own a fleet of 310 units and transported about 23 million tons of various cargoes in 1997 (in 1992 the volume of transportation was 40 million tons). The fleet includes ships for various purposes - container ships, bulk carriers, ro-ro ships, timber carriers, wood chip carriers, rail and car ferries, tankers (including ice-class ones), refrigerators, icebreakers, passenger liners, etc. Two companies are specialized: Primorskoye Shipping Company has the most powerful tanker fleet in Russia (44 vessels with a total deadweight of 635 thousand tons) and transports oil, oil products, liquid food products and chemicals, Vostoktransflot specializes in the transportation of refrigerated cargo.

Vessels of Far Eastern companies carry out coastal and ocean transportation. In 1997, 7.5 million tons of cargo were transported in coastal navigation. The main domestic transportation is carried out on the lines Vladivostok-Magadan, Vladivostok-Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Vladivostok-Anadyr, Vanino-Kholmsk, Nakhodka-Tiksi. The Sakhalin coastal navigation zone covers the main ports of the region and settlements of the Kuril Islands. In the Khabarovsk Territory, a regular connection has been established from Nikolaevsk-on-Amur to Okhotsk, Chumikan and Ayan. In Primorsky Krai, coastal transportation of goods over short distances is extremely poorly developed.

Far Eastern cargo ships call today at 150 ports in more than 60 countries of the world, supporting Russia's foreign trade with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and Southeast Asia. The most important directions of international transportation are Japan, China, Republic of Korea, USA, Australia, New Zealand. Primorskoye Shipping Company successfully operates on international trade-cross routes in Southeast Asia, India, China, Europe, Africa, Australia and South America. FESCO ships serve Australia-USA container lines calling at the largest Australian ports (Sydney, Melbourne, Blisbane, Adelaide) and US ports (Seattle, Portland, Auckland, Long Beach). Together with the South Korean company "Hyundai" the line "KSDS" (Korea-Singapore-Dalian-Singapore) was organized. Since April 1998, a new high-speed container carrier Kapitan Afanasiev has been put on the line "Busan-Incheon-Vostochny-Vladivostok". The Sakhalin Shipping Company operates on the lines "Singapore-Kolkata", "Vanino-Shanghai-Hong Kong-Vanino", "Kholmsk-ports of Japan".

The technical capabilities of the Russian fleet make it possible to escort transport ships along the Northern Sea Route. A test voyage on the Kandalaksha icebreaking ship, carried out in August 1995, showed the high efficiency of this route: the ship reached Kirkenes (Norway) from Yokohama in 27 days. If not for the numerous stops during which international experts studied the ice situation, the voyage from the Bering Strait to Norway could have taken only 10 days.

Representative offices of Far Eastern shipping companies are open in Vietnam - Haiphong, Ho Chi Minh, North Korea - Rajin, China - Shanghai, Far East, Hong Kong, UAE - Dubai, USA - New York, Taiwan - Taipei, Japan - Tokyo, Great Britain - London, Republic of Korea - Ulsan, Norway - Oslo, and also in Singapore.

River navigation. With an underdeveloped road and rail infrastructure, the provision of the Far East with navigable river routes is three times higher than the average Russian level. For every 10 thousand square meters. km of territory there are 31 km of river routes. The navigable rivers are the Amur (on the territory of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Jewish Autonomous Region and the Amur Region), Ussuri, Amgun, Maya, Tunguska (in the Khabarovsk Territory), Zeya, Selemdzha, Bureya (Amur Region), Lena, Vilyui, Kirenga, Vitim, Olekma , Aldan, Indigirka (Republic of Sakha), Kolyma (Magadan Region, Republic of Sakha), Anadyr (Magadan Region). However, most of the rivers flow in the northern subpolar latitudes, through the sparsely populated territories of Yakutia and the Magadan region, and therefore the intensity of the use of these waterways is low.

In terms of transport, the busiest river in the north is the Lena, which is navigable throughout its entire length within Yakutia. Cargo transportation is carried out between ports and marinas of cities and towns of the republic: Osetrovo, Kirensk, Lensk, Yakutsk, Sangary, Bulun. The mouth of the Lena is connected by a channel with the Arctic port of Tiksi, which significantly expands the possibilities of delivering goods to the northern regions of Yakutia.

In the southern zone of the Far East, operated inland waterways run along the Amur and its tributaries. The total length of navigable fairways here reaches 6,000 km. The navigation period lasts 5-6 months. The depth and width of the Amur make it possible to use self-propelled ships and barges with a carrying capacity of 500 to 3000 tons, and in the lower reaches up to 5000 tons.

Most of the cargo transportation along the Amur falls on the relatively large ports of Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. In 1997, the volume of transportation along the Amur amounted to about 6 million tons. The vessels of the Amur Shipping Company, the largest river carrier in the region, deliver goods to the northern regions of the Khabarovsk Territory and the Amur Region, as well as to the coastal points of Sakhalin, Primorye, and the Magadan Region. In the past decades, the shipping company, working mainly on domestic lines, annually transported over 5 million tons of cargo. Today, having significantly expanded the geography of navigation by calling at foreign ports (Japan, China, the Republic of Korea, Singapore), it carries half as much - about 2.5 million tons. Nevertheless, the Amur Shipping Company remains one of the largest river shipping companies. companies in Russia, which accounts for 4.7% of the total volume of cargo transportation by river transport in the country.

With the opening of borders for trade with China, the Amur became an international transport artery. On the Russian side, Blagoveshchensk, Nizhneleninskoye, Poyarkovo, Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur acquired the status of open ports. From the Chinese side, the ports of Heihe, Sunhe, Tongjiang, and Fuyuan became available for the entry of Russian ships. Far Eastern exporters supply river sand and other building materials, timber, and fertilizers to the neighboring country. Food and consumer goods are imported from China. In the future, it is planned to carry out transit transportation of goods from Japan and South Korea to the northern provinces of China along the Amur and its right tributary, the Songhua.

Amur plays an important role for passenger traffic. In 1997, the Amur River Shipping Company alone transported 1.2 million people. In recent years, with a decrease in passenger traffic on domestic routes, there has been a trend towards an increase in traffic on routes to and from China.

Railways

The development of railway transport in the Far East began at the end of the last century, with the laying of the South Ussuri railway and the railway station in Vladivostok in 1891. The rapid construction of railways continued until 1916. During this period, trains were launched on the Vladivostok-Khabarovsk section, a single-track track was laid from the Kuenga station to Zavitinsk, and later to Khabarovsk (Amur Railway), and, finally, in 1916, with the completion of the bridge across the Amur, through traffic began along the Trans-Siberian Railway, connecting the eastern outskirts with the center of Russia.

In the 1930s, in order to strengthen the country's defense capability and ensure year-round communication with the new military-industrial center created in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the Khabarovsk-Komsomolsk railway was laid with a length of 500 km, and later - in 1945 - this highway was extended to Sovetskaya Gavan, where one of the naval bases of the Pacific Fleet was located.

The third stage of active railway construction in the Far East (1972-1984) is associated with the Baikal-Amur Mainline. Passing 200-500 km north of the Trans-Siberian Railway, BAM not only reduces access to the Pacific Ocean for transit and export cargo, but also is a necessary infrastructure for the development of the region's natural resources in the future, with the country's economic growth. Regular traffic along the BAM was opened in 1989. However, due to unfulfilled forecasts regarding the growth of exports of Siberian oil to Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries, as well as due to the economic recession that began in Russia, the highway is used extremely poorly. Only some of its sections are exploited more or less intensively, in particular, Berkakit-Tynda-Bamovskaya station, through which coal is transported in large volumes from the Neryungri open pit. In general, the Baikal-Amur Mainline is loaded today by no more than 10% of its potential capacity.

Over the past 107 years, about 9 thousand km of railway lines have been laid across the region. Nevertheless, the provision of the Far East with railways is significantly lower than the average Russian level: for every 10 thousand square meters. km of territory here accounts for only 14 km of railway lines, while in Russia as a whole - more than 50 km.

In the regions of the Far North (Kamchatka, Magadan regions, Chukotka and Koryak autonomous districts, as well as Yakutia, with the exception of its southernmost part, where the railway line connects Neryungri and Berkakit with the Baikal-Amur Mainline), this type of transport is generally absent. The railway network is concentrated mainly in the southern zone of the Far East - in the Primorsky, Khabarovsk Territories, the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Amur and Sakhalin Regions. Occupying 23% of the total area of ​​the region, these territories have a total of 8.6 thousand km of railways in operation, that is, 98% of their total length in the Far East.

Among the administrative entities of the Far East, the Sakhalin Region and Primorsky Territory are distinguished by the highest density of railways, where for every 10 thousand square meters. km of territory accounts for 168 and 96 km of tracks, respectively. However, the network existing here was formed at the early stages of the economic development of the region of the East and has not been updated in recent decades.

On Sakhalin, the railways are single-track, for the most part they have a gauge of 1067 mm, and only on a 42-kilometer section the road meets the Russian standard - 1520 mm. 420 km of railway tracks in the north of the island were built on a temporary basis. For the most part, this is a narrow-gauge railway 750 mm wide, operated by the Rosneft-Sakhalinmorneftegaz company to ensure the vital activity of numerous oil fields and having access to the port of Moskalvo in the north, and to the village of Katangli (Nabil Bay) in the northeast, from where Sakhalin oil is loaded to tankers.

In Primorsky Krai, during periods of intensive cargo transportation by rail, the backward technical equipment of the railway network, especially port stations, becomes a deterrent. Due to the insufficient throughput capacity of public cargo areas, large volumes of cargo are processed on poorly mechanized access roads of industrial enterprises, which entails excessive downtime of wagons during cargo operations. The Trans-Siberian Railway has not yet been electrified in intensively exploited sections. In December 1998, trains were transferred to electric traction on the Khabarovsk-Bikin section (223 km). Thus, the electrification of the Trans-Siberian within the Khabarovsk Territory has been completed. As for the Primorsky Territory, here the main highway is electrified only in the Vladivostok-Ussuriysk section. The transfer of trains to electric traction on the Bikin-Ruzhino section (175 km) is scheduled for 1999-2003, and on the Ruzhino-Ussuriysk section (246 km) electric trains are planned to be put into operation in 2004-2009.

Until recently, the weak link of the Trans-Siberian Railway was a single-track bridge over the Amur near Khabarovsk. At present, the first stage of its reconstruction, which began in 1991, has been completed. The bridge, 2617 m long, now has two railway tracks and a car overpass on the second tier, where work is still ongoing. As a result of modernization, the speed of movement on the Khabarovsk section of the Trans-Siberian Railway increased to 90 km per hour for freight and up to 100 km per hour for passenger trains. The annual freight turnover on this section is 14577.4 (net) million tons/km.

This is another favorable prerequisite for the revival of the transit of international containers along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which in the 80s received up to 150 thousand containers annually. For the Asia-Pacific countries, and, above all, Japan, this is the shortest way to deliver containerized cargo to Central and Western Europe. The Trans-Siberian Railway reduces the delivery time of containers by 15-17 days and, if tariffs are agreed with the railroads of Poland and Germany, it can become more financially profitable.

Despite the technical backwardness of railways and rolling stock, rail transport in the southern zone of the Far East traditionally plays an important role in freight and passenger transportation. Railroads carry out the main trade with other regions of Russia. This type of transport on Sakhalin transports 30% of all cargo. In the Primorsky Territory and the Amur Region, the share of rail transportation is 40-50% of the total volume of cargo, in the Khabarovsk Territory - more than 70%. The main flow of domestic and export cargo is formed by three industries - fuel (coal, oil products), ferrous metallurgy and timber industry.

The capabilities of the existing railway network today fully meet the needs of the regions. However, in the future, with the growth of the economy and foreign trade of Russia with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, there will be a need for further development of this network.

In the future, the most large-scale railway construction will be carried out in the northern regions of the Far East, where there are practically no railways. Currently, the construction of the railway line Tynda-Berkakit-Tommot-Yakutsk (830 km on the Berkakit-Yakutsk section) is underway. The railway track has already been laid to Aldan. This branch will continue to Magadan.

In Sakhalin, large-scale development of oil and gas fields will require the continuation of the construction of the Korsakov-Nogliki railway line to Okha, in order to combine it with the already operating Moskalvo-Okha section, to create a trans-Sakhalin railway crossing the entire island from south to north.

Automobile transport

The total length of the road network in the Far East, including departmental roads, is 78.3 thousand km. The density of the automobile network in the region is significantly lower than in Russia as a whole, and only Primorsky Krai has an indicator close to the Russian average.

Almost 80% of paved roads are concentrated in the southern zone of the Far East and Sakhalin. The federal highways Ussuri, Kolyma and Amur pass through these territories.

The Ussuri motorway, 800 km long, built in 1935, connects the two most densely populated regions, Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. The highway passes through the most economically developed territories and connects about 200 settlements of the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories with the regional and regional centers. In recent years, major reconstruction work has been carried out on the highway: the roadway in many sections has been updated and expanded, new bridges and overpasses have been built. Thanks to technical improvements, the road has become more comfortable and safer.

The Kolyma highway runs along the Yakutsk-Khandyga-Magadan route and is connected to the road network of the Amur Region in the south. Part of this route is laid along the winter road.

The Amur Highway is a newly built road connecting the Amur Region and the Khabarovsk Territory with the regions of Eastern Siberia. On the section "Chita-Khabarovsk" it has a length of 1200 km. The construction of the motorway will continue to Nakhodka (the length within the Primorsky Territory is 628 km). Running to the east of the existing Vladivostok-Khabarovsk highway, this road will give the northern regions, poorly developed in terms of transport, direct access to the major ports of Primorye. At the same time, the configuration of the road network in the regions where the Chita-Khabarovsk-Nakhodka highway will pass will take on a more complete look - new loop roads will appear that will improve transport links between cities.

Due to their focal location and the predominance of roads of low technical categories, mainly intra-regional transportation over short distances is carried out along the highways in the Far East.

The share of road transport in all types of transportation is quite significant. On Sakhalin, more than 40% of cargo is transported by trucks. The proportion of this type of transport is even higher in Yakutia, in the Magadan and Kamchatka regions, where there are no railways. In the southern regions of the Far East, this share is 25-30%. However, with the improvement of the technical condition of roads, the role of road transport will certainly increase here.

The most tense links of the automobile network are sections that provide intensive cargo flows to and from ports.

On Sakhalin, the geography of motor transport links with ports practically duplicates the railway network, with the exception of the Ilyinsk-Uglegorsk-Boshnyakovo, Tymovskoye-Aleksandrov-Sakhalinsky roads, which do not have railway parallels.

In the Khabarovsk Territory, there were no roads leading to the main ports - Vanino and Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, until recently. Only last year, the Lidoga-Vanino highway, 346 km long, was put into operation, along which it is planned to carry out regular container transportation, and a little earlier, automobile traffic was opened along the entire length from Komsomolsk to Nikolaevsk. A year-round automobile connection with the coast has also been established in the north of the region: here, in extreme natural conditions, a road was laid from the port of Ayan to Nelkan, which solves the problem of delivering goods to the northernmost regions of the region.

In Primorsky Krai, the Vladivostok-Nakhodka road (142 km) is of exceptionally great importance, connecting the regional center with the ports of Nakhodka and Vostochny Port. Reconstruction work is currently underway on this section in order to increase the class of the highway. In the future, it is planned to build an alternative high-speed highway from Vladivostok to Nakhodka, which will be 28 km shorter than the existing road. In the coming years, in accordance with the regional program for the development of transport infrastructure, it is planned to rebuild roads and bridges on the Osinovka-Dalnegorsk-Rudnaya Pristan-Terney route, which is the only transport artery in the mining regions of the region. Intensive modernization is being carried out on the Razdolnoye-Khasan line, which connects Vladivostok with the southernmost ports of the region, with the DPRK and China. This is one of the priority investment objects for the administration of Primorsky Krai, since the road is included in the zone of influence of the international Tumangan project and, after reconstruction, will help expand trade with neighboring countries.

Road transport in the southern zone of the Far East plays an extremely important role in trade with China. In recent years, 13 road border checkpoints have been opened here, including five in the Primorsky Territory, three in the Amur Region, two in the Khabarovsk Territory and three in the Jewish Autonomous Region.

civil Aviation

The vast expanses of the Far Eastern territories and the insufficient development of land routes predetermine the increased importance of air transport here. This is especially true for passenger traffic, where aviation plays a leading role both on intraregional and interregional lines. In general, in the Far East, the share of air transport in passenger traffic is about 38%. However, there are many regions and settlements in the region for which the aircraft is the only means of communication with the "mainland".

There are more than 200 civil airports and airfields in the Far East, 105 of them are located in the south of the region. For the most part, these are airfields with unpaved runways, which fail in spring and autumn, and only thirteen have a special concrete pavement designed to receive heavy passenger and transport aircraft. The main air harbors through which the main flow of passengers and air cargo passes are the administrative centers of the territories and regions - Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Blagoveshchensk, Magadan, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yakutsk.

About 2 million passengers and about 30 thousand tons of cargo are annually transported by aircraft of the Far Eastern Regional Air Transport Administration. The main flow of cargo and passengers falls on Khabarovsk, which is located at the crossroads of air routes and has the highest potential in the Far East (its capacity is 1,500 passengers per hour). Regular flights are operated from Khabarovsk to more than 40 cities in Russia and the CIS. The second most important airport is Artem (44 km from Vladivostok), capable of handling up to 700 passengers per hour, and taking into account the newly built international terminal - up to 800 passengers per hour. Through air lines, Vladivostok has a direct connection with 20 Russian cities. After modernization and expansion, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk will become a major airport, which will be able to receive up to 1,200 passengers per hour.

After the opening in 1995 for international flights of new air corridors over the territory of the Russian Far East (Okha - Sakhalin Region, Roshchino - Primorsky Territory, Blagoveshchensk-Srednebeloe-Bomnak - Amur Region, Yelizovo-Ust-Kamchatsk-Tilichiki-Anadyr - Kamchatka and Magadan region, Omolon-Takhtoyamsk - Yakutia) significantly expanded the opportunities for the development of international airlines. Today, Russian airlines Vladivostokavia, Vostok (Khabarovsk), Mavial (Magadan Airlines), Sakhalin Airways, Sakhaavia, Aeroflot and others, as well as foreign "Alaska Airlines", "Korean Air" and the national carrier of the DPRK "Air Koryo". The administrative centers of the Far East are connected by regular routes with Niigata, Hakodate (Japan), Anchorage, San Francisco (USA), Harbin (PRC), Seoul, Busan (Republic of Korea), Pyongyang (DPRK), Singapore. Charter flights are operated to many cities of the Asia-Pacific countries.

Pipeline transport

On the territory of the Far East, pipeline transport has been developed in three regions - on Sakhalin, in the Khabarovsk Territory and in Yakutia.

The longest pipeline branches here are laid for the transportation of Sakhalin oil and gas to the Khabarovsk Territory. The throughput capacity of the main pipeline Okha-Komsomolsk during periods of full load of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Khabarovsk oil refineries - consumers of Sakhalin oil - is 5 million tons per year. The current main pipeline is planned to be extended to Khabarovsk. In 1998, a gas pipeline was put into operation at the Komsomolsk-Solnechny section (40 km), in 1999 the gas pipeline will be brought to the city of Amursk, and in three or four years to Khabarovsk (about 400 km).

On the territory of Yakutia, oil and gas pipeline transport is at the very beginning of its development. The gas pipeline network covers the settlements of Taas-Tumus-Yakutsk-Pokrovsk. Oil is supplied through the Talakan-Vitim temporary pipeline (110 km), which operates only during the warm periods of the year.

In the future, with the development of new oil and gas fields in Sakhalin, it is planned to continue the gas pipeline from Khabarovsk to Primorsky Krai. A grandiose project for laying a 6.6 thousand km main oil and gas pipeline is proposed by the Sakhagaz company (Yakutia). In the event of its implementation, Yakut oil and gas will come to the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories, the DPRK and the Republic of Korea (up to Seoul

Agriculture of the Far East

In terms of the value of the gross volume of agricultural products, the first place in 1997 was occupied by the Amur Region (23.4% of the products of the regions of the Far East). In second place was Primorsky Krai (18.2%), giving way to the leader of the Amur Region (in 1991, the share of Primorsky Krai was 26.6%, Amur Region - 20.2%). In third place is the Republic of Sakha (18.0%), yielding only 0.2% in terms of value to Primorsky Krai (in 1991, its share was 13.7%).

The share of the Khabarovsk Territory in 1997 was 17.7% (1.6% higher than in 1991). At the same time, until March 25, 1991, it included the Jewish Autonomous Region, whose share in the gross agricultural production in 1997 amounted to 2.7%.

The share of the Kamchatka region increased significantly - from 6.5% in 1991 to 9.6% in 1997. At the same time, the share of the Sakhalin region slightly decreased - from 10.5% to 8.2%. The smallest share in 1997 (excluding the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug) belonged to the Magadan Region - 2.2% (in 1991, together with the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, it was 6.5%).

Natural patterns are observed in the structure of agriculture: in the northern regions (Magadan Region and the Republic of Sakha), the share of animal husbandry is higher (61.1 and 59.0%, respectively) than crop production (38.9% and 41%). Thanks to this, the Republic of Sakha is the leader in the Far East in terms of livestock production (23.3% of all livestock products in the Far East).

In the rest of the regions, which account for about four-fifths of the gross agricultural production of the Far East, the share of crop production was higher. Crop production occupied the greatest weight among the regions of the Far East in the agricultural products of the Amur Region - 62.5%. In 1997, about 27% of the crop production of the Far East was produced in the region. In the Sakhalin Oblast, production in the crop sector accounted for 60.2% of the total volume of gross agricultural output. Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Oblast had a somewhat less pronounced specialization in crop production - 58.4% and 57.5%. In Primorsky Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Region, the shares of crop production (51.3% and 52.4% respectively) and livestock farming (48.7% and 47.6%) are approximately the same.

Gross agricultural production includes not only the cost of raw crop and livestock products: it includes the value of work in progress in crop production (costs for sowing winter and spring crops, tillage and other work carried out in the estimated year before the start of harvesting for the next year's crop), the cost of raising livestock, poultry and other farm animals in the reporting year, as well as the cost of beekeeping and fish farming.

Therefore, an important indicator of the dynamics of agriculture is the assessment of the gross yields of the main agricultural crops and the production of the most important livestock products in physical terms.

Comparison of 1998 with the indicators of 1991 shows that natural volumes of vegetable and sunflower harvest have increased. In general, the volume of potato harvest in the Far East in 1998 was 22.1% higher than in 1991. Primorsky Krai became the undisputed leader in potato production (33.7% of the gross potato harvest in the Far East). The collection of vegetables in the Far East also increased significantly - by 39.4%. The main producers were Khabarovsk and Primorsky krais and Amur oblast (28.6%; 22.4% and 20.1%, respectively). Moreover, the main share of these crops in 1998 was grown in households (88.3% of potatoes and 77.1% of other vegetables). Sunflower harvest increased by 11%, with the main increase observed in 1998 (the growth rate against the previous year was 54%).

The harvest of grain and leguminous crops in 1998 in the Far East amounted to 49.8% of the volume in 1991. About 54% of the gross harvest of these crops belonged to the Amur Region.

Livestock production in 1998 was significantly lower than in 1991, meat production in the Far East decreased by 53.7% (compared to 1997, a decline of 22% was observed). The most important meat producers were the Republic of Sakha (27.3% of natural production volumes of the Far East) and the Amur Region (24.5%). The share of households in the total volume of meat production in 1998 reached 60.5%.

Milk production in the Far East in 1998 amounted to 45.4% of the volume in 1991. The largest volume was produced in the Amur region (200 thousand tons or 30.4% of the production of the Far East). In general, for the Far East, the proportion of households in the total volume of milk production in the Far East exceeded 63%.

The main share of egg production (77.5%) was provided in 1998 by agricultural enterprises and farming (peasant) households. 33.2% of the total egg production in the Far East was concentrated in Primorsky Krai, 28.3% - in Khabarovsk. In general, for the Far East, production volumes in 1998 amounted to 36.1% of the 1991 volume.

Conclusion

Now the situation in the Far East is quite difficult. A critical situation has developed in the fuel and energy complex. The enterprises of the Primorsky Territory owe more than 180 billion rubles to the power industry, which leads to the shutdown of most industries and their financial paralysis. Even the largest enterprises such as JSC "Dalzavod" (Vladivostok) are forced to stop. There is a real undeclared war for energy resources between the regions of the Far East. Thus, oil products coming from Siberia to Kamchatka are confiscated in the ports of Vladivostok and Nakhodka. In 1993, 76 thousand tons of fuel paid for by Kamchatka were confiscated. Such stories are not uncommon in the region. So, coal is delivered to Sakhalin under guard, otherwise the trains with fuel will be confiscated by the Khabarovsk Territory.

Among the traditional industries of specialization is the fishing industry. The Far East, with its 5% of the Russian population, produces more than 50% of the country's fish products. State fishing enterprises produce up to 75% of the total catch of fish and seafood, they own 90% of the industry's fixed production assets. However, the state of the fleet is such that 64% of the mining, 95% of the processing and 56% of the transport vessels should already be decommissioned. The industry is close to disaster.

Ancient history of the Far East

The history of the study of the ancient past of the Far East

The Far East has long attracted the attention of travelers and researchers with numerous remains of human life, which testified to the high level of development of local tribes, the vibrant life that once flowed here, and close ties with neighboring peoples. The first information about the Far Eastern monuments of antiquity came from the Russian Cossacks in the 17th century.

In the 18th century, a number of generalizing works on the history of Siberia and the Far East appeared by S. U. Remezov, G. F. Miller, and S. P. Krasheninnikov. The works of these scientists and travelers contributed to the growth of interest in the distant and little-studied outskirts of Russia, about the historical past of which even the most educated people of that time had very vague ideas.

By the middle of the 19th century, the observations of travelers and researchers aroused interest in the archeology of the Far East and laid the foundation for the systematic collection of information about its antiquities, as well as the accumulation of knowledge about the life, economy, dwellings, and the language of the indigenous population.

A number of expeditions to Siberia and the Far East were made by mining engineer I. A. Lopatin. Wherever he had to work, he collected information about archeological monuments, made sketches of stone tools, ancient dwellings, and household utensils. He described 49 sites of Primorye and Sakhalin.

Random photos of nature
In 1884, the Society for the Study of the Amur Territory was established, headed by F. F. Busse, and an attempt was made to move from random finds and incidental descriptions to a targeted search for archaeological sites.

In the nineties of the last century, travels began in Primorye and the Amur region of the outstanding researcher of the Far East and writer V. K. Arsenyev. He conducted excavations, described 228 archaeological sites, collected numerous legends of local peoples about disappeared tribes and past events.

The works of M. I. Yankovsky, V. P. Margaritov, A. I. Razin, A. Ya. Gurov, G. S. Novikov-Daursky also accumulated significant material. In the museums of Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk, extensive collections of antiquities were collected, revealing the material culture of that distant time.

But truly extensive archaeological research unfolded in the Far East only from the middle of the 20th century. They are connected, first of all, with the name of Academician A.P. Okladnikov, an outstanding scientist, a tireless researcher. A.P. Okladnikov made his first scientific expedition in 1925, when he was only 17 years old. In the future, the expeditionary routes of the scientist passed along the great Asian rivers - Lena, Angara, Amur, Kolyma, Indigirka; he worked in Mongolia and Korea, Central Asia and beyond the Arctic Circle, studied the ancient cultures of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, Sakhalin and the Kuriles. Since 1953, the Far Eastern Archaeological Expedition organized by him began a systematic, purposeful study of the ancient history of the Amur and Primorye.

A.P. Derevyanko, Zh.V. Andreeva, G.I. Andreev, V.E. Medvedev, E.V. Shavkunov, V.E. Larichev, R.S. Vasilievsky, V. A. Golubev, V. O. Shubin; Asia - N. N. Dikov, Yu. A. Mochanov.

And yet, the Far Eastern land continues to store the greatest number of facts about the distant past of mankind, and excavations bring more and more new discoveries. Our knowledge of the past can be compared to an iceberg: the knowledge that has become the property of history is its upper part. But much is still hidden from the inquisitive mind of man, and scientists of new generations have a lot of work to do. So, let's start our journey into the depths of millennia.

The Ancient Stone Age in the Amur Region and Primorye

In this part of the work, I will talk about glaciation, the sites of the most ancient people and their tools, as well as what were and how the most ancient inhabitants of the Amur Region and Primorye lived, about the settlement of the Amur Region and Primorye, about the life and life of “a reasonable person, about their tribal community. mankind began over a million years ago. In those distant times, there was a separation of man from the animal world and the formation of human society began. The climate of the Earth then was warm and mild, tropical vegetation occupied vast spaces, including in the Far East.

The earliest traces of the life of the most ancient people were found in Africa and Southeast Asia. From here began their resettlement to other territories of the globe. It was a long and complex process that required a significant amount of time, measured in tens of thousands of years.

Approximately 700 thousand years ago, a widespread cooling of the climate began in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth, which was accompanied by glaciation of most of Asia, Europe and America. Glaciers formed on the tops of large mountains. When their size increased, the glaciers began to slide into the valleys, occupying more and more new spaces. Cold air, bypassing mountain barriers, passed far to the south. Heat-loving vegetation disappeared, many species of animals died out. They were replaced by new flora and fauna.

The most powerful was the ice shell of Europe - up to two kilometers thick. It stretched from the British Isles to the Urals and covered an area of ​​about five million square kilometers. The north of Asia was covered by an eight-hundred-meter thick ice sheet with an area of ​​about four million square kilometers. Periods of glacial advance alternated with periods of warming and melting of ice masses.

In the south of the Far East, a cold snap also set in. But the climate was still milder than in Europe, Siberia, and northern Asia. On the territory of the Far East, either there was no ice cover at all, or it was insignificant. Perhaps the ridges bordering the Amur and Primorye created an insurmountable barrier to the flow of cold northern air. In any case, representatives of the ancient preglacial flora still grow in the Ussuri taiga - velvet tree and Manchurian walnut, wild grapes and lemongrass, aralia and ginseng, which has amazing healing properties. The vine vine wraps around the northern spruce, and the black birch leans towards the lotus, the most delicate flower of the south. Of course, the general cooling had an impact on the vegetation of the south of the Far East: the herbaceous cover increased, birch and pine began to predominate in the forests, moss bogs occupied large areas. Mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, bison, elk, deer, brown bears, tigers now roamed the endless expanses.

Such circumstances, undoubtedly, should have contributed to the early appearance of man in the south of the Far East. This was confirmed by the discoveries made by archaeologists in the basins of the Zeya and Amur rivers.

The first finds were made near the village of Filimoshki on the Zeya River. Examining the bank washed away by a stormy river, in a layer of well-rounded river pebbles, the members of the archaeological expedition discovered stones that were clearly split by strong blows. There were traces of processing on the stones. Did man or nature work on them? This is the question scientists have asked themselves. Further searches, which brought about a dozen chipped pebble pellets, left no doubt: these are tools, and they were made by human hand. Finds in Filimoshki are not the only ones in the Amur region. Pebble tools found near the village of Kumary in the Upper Amur basin and near the Ust-Tu River, which flows into the Zeya, were another confirmation of human habitation in the Far East in ancient times. This allows us to rightfully assume that the south of the Far East, along with Africa, Southeast Asia and Southern Europe, was once part of the area of ​​​​settlement of the most ancient people. After all, the age of the Amur tools was 150-200 thousand years!

Rough and primitive in form, these tools were made from whole or split river pebbles, which nature had first worked on. For centuries, and perhaps millennia, a stormy river tossed them or rolled an ancient glacier until they acquired ideal smoothness and oval shape. From the pebbly shallows, the hand of the master raised them and turned them into tools.

One end of the pebble was hewn with several strong chips. This is how the working edge of the blade of a stone tool was made. The untreated smooth part of the pebble at the end opposite the blade served as a handle that was comfortable to hold in the palm of your hand. These were hand axes with an end blade. They reached a length of 10-20 centimeters. man could

to perform with them all the work in which a strong massive blade was needed and at the same time it was necessary to deliver strong blows - to chop, cut, dig the ground, for example, when extracting edible plants or when extracting small animals from holes. The ax could serve as a weapon for defense or attack, especially when hunting animals.

For processing skins, scrapers were made - massive flat pebbles with a side blade. And at the ancient Amur sites, tools were found, the blades of which were processed in such a way that a point was formed in the middle - a “nose”. Such products served as cutting tools and were used as cutting knives in the manufacture of clothing from skins.

In their appearance, all the most ancient Far Eastern tools resembled the pebble products of Africa, Europe, Southeast and Central Asia, belonging to the same period.

The pebble stone processing technique was later improved and spread widely throughout the Far East.

The advancement of primitive people from the southern regions of Asia to the Far East was due to vital necessity. They, hunters and gatherers, needed vast areas of land, rich in edible vegetation and game, to make a living. The Far East in this regard, despite the rather harsh climate, was a fertile land. The thirst for prey attracted hunters further and further into the depths of uncharted regions.

The first people who appeared in the Far East are not yet fully formed intelligent beings. In science, they are called "handy people." Small in stature (155-165 centimeters), stocky build, with a massive skeleton and powerful muscles, they moved on two legs, and their upper limbs were basically already real human hands, and the right hand was more developed. They walked stooping, and ran, crouching to the ground. Their faces were characterized by a low sloping forehead, superciliary arches strongly protruding forward, massive jaws, and an almost complete absence of a chin. The "skillful people" were explained by separate sounds and simple words.

The most ancient man was no longer a completely helpless creature. He knew how to make the simplest tools, knew and used the life-giving power of fire, although he still did not know how to get it on his own. All this allowed him to overcome many difficulties in the struggle for his existence. But the ancient man could not survive alone. Constant concern for obtaining food, the need for protection from predatory animals forced people to live in groups - in small groups of 30-40 people. The first human groups were called herds.

So, the most ancient people in the Far East appeared a very long time ago. Archaeological finds have proved that the earliest traces of human activity in this area date back to the Early Paleolithic.

Millennia passed. Man improved the tools of labor, changed himself. In the south of the Far East, a large number of sites of ancient people who lived 40-10 thousand years ago, that is, at the end of the Old Stone Age, were discovered.

In terms of body structure and appearance, people of this period did not differ in any way from people of our time, and their hands were already capable of performing a variety of, including very complex, labor actions. Their brain did not differ from the brain of a modern person and twice the weight and volume of the brain of the previous “handy man”. On this basis, they were called “reasonable people,” that is, thinking people. "A reasonable man" owned a coherent speech. The advent of modern man was a huge step forward in the history of mankind.

In the Amur region, sites dating back to the end of the Paleolithic era were found near the village of Kumary, near the village of Gromatukhi, near Lake Borodino on the Middle Amur. In Primorye, two monuments are most interesting - Osinovka (the central part of Primorye) and Ustinovka (eastern Primorye).

A very interesting picture was revealed to the gaze of archaeologists during excavations near the village of Osinovka, not far from the city of Ussuriysk. In different places of the excavated surface, beaten, but not yet finished pebbles, as well as ready-made axes, were scattered. On the territory of the parking lot, scientists discovered the remains of an ancient workshop. A large quartzite pebble with a chipped surface served the ancient master as an anvil - a stand for upholstering workpieces. It clearly shows the recesses formed from the impact of a stone on a stone. During processing, pebbles, apparently, were inserted into special devices - clamps, splitting the thick branch of the tree. One end was carefully hewn on both sides so that a wide sharp blade was obtained. Then the edges of the blade were treated with smaller chips - retouching, sharpening it. Next to the anvil were flakes chipped from pebbles and partially processed pebble blanks. It is not known what caused the ancient master to stop working at full speed. But it is thanks to this find that we now have the opportunity to look into the daily life of the ancient inhabitants of the southern part of the Far East and mentally imagine them at work. As you can see, the products of the Osino craftsmen bear the imprint of the ancient pebble tradition.

Along with massive pebble tools, people at the end of the Paleolithic era used new tools - knives, scrapers, spear and dart tips, and chisels. For their manufacture, a lamellar stone processing technique was used, which was a big step forward in the culture of primitive man. Plates were chipped from well-rounded river pebbles - blanks for future tools. The blanks were carefully hewn, and then processed on both sides with small, elegant chips, sharpened. This technique was called double-sided retouching. From the plates, mainly sharp cutting and piercing tools were made. Their manufacture required patience, precision, dexterity, good knowledge of the properties of the stone.

The research conducted by scientists makes it possible to learn not only about the tools of labor of an ancient person, but also about his life, occupations, and his struggle for survival in nature. In the Paleolithic era, the population of the Amur region and Primorye was still not numerous. His main occupation was hunting wild animals. Fishing and gathering were a good support.

Interesting finds were made in the south of Primorye in the cave of the Geographical Society (named after this public organization), reaching a length of 26 meters. The bones of about 40 species of various animals found here, split with the help of massive tools, made it possible to establish that the contemporaries of a person who lived in this area more than 20 thousand years ago were mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse, roe deer, wolverine, wolf, deer, leopard, bull, hyena, tiger, deer, brown bear. It was the home of skilled hunters who owned various stone tools and methods of hunting these animals. Stone hunting equipment was also found here: the tips of darts and spears, knives for hunting and butchering carcasses, scrapers for processing skins. By splitting and sharpening the bones of animals, the inhabitants of the cave made cutting and piercing tools from them.

At a time when people lived in the Osinovka area and in the cave of the Geographical Society, the climate in Primorye and the Amur region was more severe than now. Glacial processes continued. Herds of mammoths, bison, and rhinoceroses roamed across the endless expanses - from the Amur to Chukotka. Sometimes they consisted of 150-200 animals. Their long, stiff coat protected them from severe cold. Cave hyenas, bears, tigers competed with man for the possession of warm caves in which one could hide during the long winter. But more often than not, the victory went to the man. The cave became his first dwelling. On the plains, people usually made dwellings from the ribs of mammoths and other large animals and covered them with skins.

Ancient people led a wandering lifestyle. Following the nomadic herds of wild animals, primitive hunters were forced to move over considerable distances, stopping only for a short time in suitable places and being content with a temporary shelter. The oldest inhabitants of the Far East of the Paleolithic era did not leave traces of permanent dwellings.

People hunted bulls, deer, armed with clubs, clubs and spears. Sometimes they managed to suddenly attack a herd of animals and drive them to a steep cliff. Crazed with fear, the animals died in dozens, rolling into the abyss. Then the hunters had a big holiday: they had plenty of meat, skins for clothes and fat - this wonderful source of heat and light on long winter evenings and hearty food, from which a tired hunter regained strength and dexterity. But such holidays were quite rare among people. Much more often, hunger was their constant companion during the nomadic pastures.

A great success for the hunters of the Ice Age was the extraction of mammoths - gigantic animals well adapted to the cold climate. They reached four meters in height, and their powerful tusks were up to five meters long. A pair of these tusks weighed at least 400 kilograms!

Of course, not all mammoths were giants. So, the tusk of a mammoth found within the city of Khabarovsk, not far from the locomotive depot when digging a foundation pit at a depth of eight meters, weighs 60 kilograms, its length is 2.55 meters, and the girth at the base is 48 centimeters. This tusk is presented in the exposition of the Khabarovsk Museum of Local Lore.

Mammoth inspired fear in ancient people. The hunt for him was difficult and dangerous. But man has learned to conquer the beast-mountain. Sometimes hunters drove these huge animals into swamps and swamps. When bogged down, mammoths became human prey. Often they landed in deep holes dug by people on the paths leading to a watering hole, and disguised from above. Such a hunt required the efforts of the entire team.

Joint hunting, gathering and other labor activities, a common dwelling, a common fire that warms its inhabitants - all this rallied and united people. Gradually, the primitive herd was replaced by a tribal community - a collective of relatives. In each community there were several dozen people - relatives. The men hunted and made tools. Women were engaged in gathering, sewing clothes, cooking. The man took care not only about himself and his children, but also about the whole community. Food, skins, tools belonged to the whole family, were common.

The woman-mother was highly respected - the keeper of the fire, the educator of children. Kinship was transmitted through the maternal line. Therefore, such tribal communities were called maternal. The maternal clan existed in the Far East, as in other regions of the globe, for quite a long time.

Let's summarize:

Thus, the not too severe, relatively stable climate created favorable conditions for the settlement of ancient human groups in the territory of the Far East. The rich flora and fauna contributed to the development of hunting, fishing, and gathering. Tools were improved. Man has acquired a modern form. From the primitive herd, people moved on to the maternal tribal community.

Amur and Primorye during the Mesolithic

I turn to a new task, in which I will describe the retreat of the glacier, the change in flora and fauna, the improvement of tools and the appropriating economy.

The Old Stone Age lasted hundreds of thousands of years. Much less time in the history of mankind takes the period of the Mesolithic - the Middle Stone Age. It was a period of changes in the climate, animal and vegetable sea of ​​the globe, as well as in the life of human society.

At the end of the Paleolithic, a significant climate warming occurred on Earth. The glaciers have receded. They disappeared in the mainland of Eurasia, with the exception of the Far North and mountainous regions above 3500 meters above sea level. The last stage of the ice age ended 10-8 millennia ago. Significant changes have taken place in the vast expanses once occupied by glaciers and tundra. They also touched the territory of the Far East, its southern and northern regions. In the south, rivers and lakes have acquired their modern appearance, in the north, the contours of the Bering and Okhotsk Seas have their current outlines. A climate similar to today's has formed: sharply continental, with snowy winters and hot summers in areas remote from the sea, and more humid and mild on the coast. About 12 thousand years ago, the formation of the modern flora and fauna took place. In the forests of the southern part of the Far East, the number of conifers has decreased and the proportion of broad-leaved vegetation has increased. In the north, climate warming has led to a change from dry tundra to marshy tundra.

Many species of animals have disappeared, including the mammoth, cave bear, woolly rhinoceros. In the north, only wild deer have adapted to the new conditions. It has become the main object of hunting of the population. Numerous colonies of seals, seals, fur seals settled on the coasts of the northern seas after the retreat of the glaciers. Elk, wolf, brown bear, red deer, roe deer, spotted deer, wild boar, and Ussuri tiger settled in the forests of the southern part of the Far East. The rivers and lakes here abounded with fish, and in the summer they were enlivened by flocks of geese and ducks.

Changes have taken place not only in nature, but also in the life of human groups.

To master the taiga and the post-glacial steppes, man needed many inventions. The first and main of these were the bow and arrows. Their appearance was a real revolution in the primitive technology of the Stone Age. Compared to all other throwing devices, the bow turned out to be the most effective and most powerful long-range weapon of ancient hunters and warriors. He surpassed all guns in terms of lightness, ease of handling, accuracy and speed of fire. An arrow fired from a bow flew farther and more accurately than a spear. The spear flew no further than 30-40 meters. The arrows inflicted serious damage at a distance of 80-100 meters. Arrows with stone and bone tips passed right through the bison's body. The widespread distribution of bows and arrows contributed to the further development of hunting, significantly improved the life of the hunting tribes and greatly facilitated their daily hard work.

During the Mesolithic period in the south of the Far East, pebble and lamellar stone processing techniques continue to develop. The first prevails in the Amur region, and the second - in Primorye.

At all settlements, archaeologists discovered special work sites - original workshops where stone was processed and stone tools were made.

Very interesting discoveries were made by archaeologists in the area of ​​the city of Khabarovsk. Here, on a high terrace along the right bank of the Amur, several Mesolithic settlements were discovered. Hearths of heavily burnt river stones have been preserved from them. There were many guns around the hearths. The finds were of great interest to scientists. And that's why. Among the Amur stone tools, the most common were regularly shaped items made of flat pebbles, excellently worked on one side with wide chips. The oval blades of the tools were sharpened with fine retouching. These are the first stone axes. Using them, the ancient inhabitants of the Amur region could now make wider use of the wealth of forests and waters, not only more successfully build shelters from rain and cold, but also make various hunting and fishing devices. Wooden boats hollowed out with axes were used to move and catch fish, which was rich in Amur.

Widespread in the south of the Far East is such a universal tool as a leaf-shaped knife-blade, processed with double-sided retouching. Some of the blades found by archaeologists could serve as excellent combat daggers and hunting knives for butchering prey. They could easily rip open the skin of the beast and dismember it into pieces. Other blades, more massive, were quite suitable as spearheads. The smallest could serve as tips for light throwing darts. Of the Mesolithic monuments of Primorye, the settlement near the village of Ustinovka is the most famous. There were excellent conditions for human life here: a high terrace near the river, around - a beautiful taiga, where even now you can meet wild boar, red deer, and even the "owners" of these places - a bear or a tiger. But not only hunting and fishing attracted people here. Here, tuff is found in large quantities - a stone of volcanic origin, which served as a material for the manufacture of tools. Separating plates from stone blanks, ancient craftsmen made knives, piercers, scrapers, chisels, arrowheads from them - almost all the tools a person needs in everyday life.

Hunting and fishing during the Mesolithic period continued to be the main occupations of the ancient Amurs and Primorye. At this time, man so far only took everything ready-made from nature: he killed animals, caught fish, and collected edible plants. Such an economy is called appropriating.

All the energy of human activity, all the strength of his labor were directed only to the extraction of food and materials for the manufacture of clothing, dwellings, tools, to the use of natural resources in finished form. Man's powers and possibilities remained limited, constrained by direct dependence on nature. This dependence left a certain imprint on all conditions of human existence. The harsh and dangerous life of hunters, fishermen and gatherers of the Stone Age required a constant effort. It was full of deprivation and hard exhausting work. The people of the Mesolithic era, like their Paleolithic ancestors, were forced to endure all the vagaries and accidents of natural phenomena. Short periods of abundance of animal and vegetable food gave way to long months of hunger strikes, when the old food reserves had already dried up, and it was still far from the creation of new reserves. Years of relatively abundant food were often followed by years when the very existence of hunting and fishing communities was threatened.

The Mesolithic inhabitants of the Far East continued to lead a nomadic lifestyle. They lived in light portable dwellings such as chums and remained in one place as long as there were a lot of animals and game nearby. They still did not know how to make pottery - ceramics, and did not need it. They did not stay long in one place, and fragile earthenware was useless to them. Scientists call such ancient cultures pre-ceramic. All of them belong to the period of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic.

Concluding this part of the work, it should be noted that:
The finds made in Primorye and the Amur region showed that the Mesolithic population had stepped far ahead in comparison with the Paleolithic man. The most important inventions of the Mesolithic era made it possible to improve hunting and fishing trades and make them more productive. And although the population of the Far East still remained small and individual areas inhabited by people alternated with huge uninhabited areas, the person already knew and knew a lot, and therefore further changes in his life were not long in coming.

Development of the Far East in the 19th century
The Russian Empire had a colossal territory. Thanks to the energy and courage of the explorers of the 16th-18th centuries (Ermak, Nevelskoy, Dezhnev, Wrangel, Bering, etc.), the border of Russia was advanced far to the east, to the very coast of the Pacific Ocean. 60 years after Yermak's detachment crossed the Ural ridge, their sons and grandsons were already cutting down the first winter quarters on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The first to reach the harsh coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk were the Cossacks of Ivan Moskvitin in 1639. Active development of the Far East by Russia began under Peter 1 almost immediately after the Poltava victory and the end of the Northern War with the conclusion of peace with Sweden in 1721. Peter 1 was interested in sea routes to India and China, the spread of Russian influence in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean, reaching the “unknown part” of North America, where the French and British had not yet managed to reach. New Russian lands with their inexhaustible wealth, fertile soils and forests became an integral part of the Russian state. The power of the state has increased markedly. “Amazed Europe, at the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Third, hardly even suspecting the existence of Muscovy, sandwiched between Lithuania and the Tatars, was stunned by the appearance of a huge empire on its eastern outskirts.” And although this territory belonged to the Russian Empire, the way of life of the peoples who inhabited it from the Urals to Sakhalin remained at a level not far from the primitive communal one that existed among them even before they were colonized by Russia. Power was limited to the activities of the royal governors and the maintenance of small garrisons in any large settlements. The tsarist government saw in Siberia and the Far East primarily a source of cheap raw materials, and an excellent place for exile and prisons.

Concluding this part of the work, I note that only in the 19th century, when Russia entered the era of capitalist development, did intensive development of vast areas begin.

Early 19th century in the Far East

In this part of the work, it can be noted that at the beginning of the 19th century, the gradual development of the territories of the Far East began. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, no extensive exploration of the Far East had yet been undertaken. There was not even a permanent population along the upper reaches of the Amur River. Although limited to the Amur region in this territory, of course, it is impossible.

The main event of that period was undoubtedly the expedition of G.I. Nevelsky in 1819-1821. He managed not only to explore the coast of Sakhalin, but also to prove that he is an island. Further work on the study of the Far East brought him another victory. He discovered the location of the mouth of the Amur. In his studies, he imagined an extremely uninhabited coast. Indeed, according to the data of that period, the number of local population in the Far East among different nationalities ranged from one to four thousand people.

Undoubtedly, the main researchers were the Cossacks and the resettling peasants. It was they who mastered the territory of the Far East on land. In 1817, the peasant A. Kudryavtsev visited the Gilyaks on the Amur. He learned that the land on which they live is very rich and far from civilization. In the thirties, the runaway Old Believer G. Vasiliev told about the same.

Concluding this part of the work, we can say that it was in the 19th century that the intensive development of the Far East began.

Russia's interests in research in the East

Having information about the uninhabited territory of the Far East and the lack of control of the local population, the Russian government in the fifties of the nineteenth century raised the issue of delimitation of territories before China. In 1854, proposals were sent to Beijing to begin negotiations.

On May 28, 1858, the Aigun Treaty was concluded, according to which the division of the Far Eastern regions took place. This was a very important stage in the development of the Far East as a whole. Since now any expedition or even just settlers were required to take into account the belonging of a particular territory.

As a result, Russia received additional wealth and settlements from which to collect taxes. The exploration of territories now also acquired the aspect of exploration of minerals.

Continued research and development of territories

In this part of the work, a more extended study of the Far East can be traced. In 1844, traveling in the north and distant regions of Siberia, A.F. Middendorf also ended up on the Amur River. His research made it possible to establish the approximate route of the Amur channel. He and his follower in 1849 - G.I. Nevelskoy led a wave of Russian peasants and Cossacks. Now the study and development of the Far East became more expanded and systematic.

In the fifties, two districts were already formed in the lower reaches of the Amur - Nikolaevsky and Sofia. The Ussuri Cossack and Yuzhnossuri districts were also formed. By the beginning of the sixties, more than three thousand people had moved to these territories.

In 1856, three Russian posts were set up on the territory of the future Amur Region: Zeya, Kumar and Khingan, but active settlement of these regions began only in 1857. In the spring of that year, the first three hundred of the Amur stud farm, newly formed from Transbaikalians, were moved down the Amur. Since 1858, the process of intensive development and settlement of the Far East by Russian settlers began. From 1858 to 1869 more than thirty thousand people moved to the Far East. About half of all Russian settlers were Cossacks from the neighboring Trans-Baikal region.

Now every day in the Far East was marked by intensive development and study of the area. Until then, no one had yet compiled a complete map of the Far East. Although almost all pioneers and researchers attempted to do this. Their research in this area was hindered by a very large area of ​​​​the territory and its extreme unpopulation. Only in the early seventies, thanks to the joint efforts and by order of the Tsar personally, a very approximate map of the main populated areas of the Far East was compiled.

The construction of the Siberian railway, begun in 1891. and completed in 1900 played a great role in the economic development of these areas. This especially strengthened the positions of the Russian state in the Far East. A city and a naval base were built on the Pacific coast. And so that no one doubts that these lands are Russian, the city was called Vladivostok.

Summing up the above, I note that in the 19th century Russian posts began to form on the territory of the Far East, railways were built, the area was studied.

Conclusion
What did the development of the Far East give Russia? By the end of the sixties of the nineteenth century, the Far East was already largely settled and mastered by immigrants from Siberia and European Russia. Significant success was achieved in the Amur region, where the vast majority of migrants rushed and where the fertile lands of the Amur-Zeya Plain were successfully developed. Already by 1869, the Amur Region had become the granary of the entire Far Eastern Territory and not only fully provided itself with bread and vegetables, but also had large surpluses. On the territory of Primorye, the proportion and size of the peasant population at the end of the nineteenth century were smaller than in the Amur region, but even here the scope of the settlers inspired respect and recognition of the masculinity of the pioneers. The number of local residents in spite of, and perhaps precisely because of this, has sharply decreased.

Stable trade relations with China were established, which in turn brought a constant income to the Russian treasury. Many Chinese, seeing that there are prosperous places nearby in Russia, began to move to the Russian land now. They were driven from their homeland by crop failures, lack of land and extortions from officials. Even the Koreans, despite strict laws in their country, even providing for the death penalty for unauthorized resettlement, risked their lives to get to Russian territories.

In general, the exploration and development of the Far East, which reached its apogee in the middle of the nineteenth century, by its end acquired a rather calm and systematic character. And the study of the territories of the Far East for the presence of minerals brings success in our time. There are still a lot of secrets kept by the Far Eastern land.

Weekly tour, one-day hiking trips and excursions combined with comfort (trekking) in the mountain resort of Khadzhokh (Adygea, Krasnodar Territory). Tourists live at the camp site and visit numerous natural monuments. Rufabgo Waterfalls, Lago-Naki Plateau, Meshoko Gorge, Big Azish Cave, Belaya River Canyon, Guam Gorge.

Introduction

1. General characteristics of the Far East

1.1.Historical background

1.2. Physical location

1.3. Economic and geographical characteristics

1.4. The state of the mineral resource base

2. Mining of precious metals and diamonds

2.1. From the history of development

2.2 State of the resource base

2.3 Characteristics of the metallurgical industry

2.4 Characteristics of the diamond industry

3. Environmental problems of the Far East

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The Far East is relevant today, promising, it allows the development of productive forces for many decades to come. It is important that we do this not by isolated efforts, but by combining the capabilities of the federal center, the region, and large financial and industrial groups, using the mechanisms of private public partnership. A vivid example of this is the prospects for the development of the commercial seaport of Vanino. Or take at least the Baikal-Amur Mainline. It was designed and built to transport 27 million tons annually, which was then considered a huge achievement, a breakthrough. And today we are talking about 60-70 million tons. And this is the prospect of the next 10-12 years. But for this you need to work out strategic decisions in advance. Moreover, neither individual private investors, nor the state as a whole, nor even the region itself, can solve such problems alone. Only together, in one bundle, will it be possible to obtain the desired result. And there are several such examples in the Khabarovsk Territory. I have already mentioned Vanino. The second major hub is Komsomolsk-on-Amur. At the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association. Yu.A. Gagarin and the military theme with fifth-generation fighters, and the medium-range aircraft "SuperJet-100", which triumphantly thundered in Le Bourget in June and received contracts for more than 200 million dollars. Orders for this car have already been scheduled until 2010 and will continue to come, which we have no doubts about. In the same place, in KnAAPO, amphibious aircraft "Be-103", "Su-80" are produced for small airports. If now the ratio of defense and civilian products at the enterprise is 90 to 10, then in the next two years it will change dramatically and will amount to 50 to 50. The second specialization of the city is shipbuilding. The Amur Shipbuilding Plant, which had been living in problems and shortages for ten years, nevertheless remained afloat.

1. General characteristics of the Far East

1.1 Historical background

The discovery and settlement of the Far East falls on the 17th century and is associated with the general advance of the Russians to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The paths of the detachments of pioneer Cossacks first ran along the icy seas of the Arctic Ocean and rivers, only then they headed to more southern territories up to the Amur and Primorye. In 1632, the centurion Peter Beketov penetrated from the mouth up the Lena and founded a prison, called Yakutsk, which soon became the center of the East Siberian Territory and a stronghold for further campaigns to the east and south. In 1639, I. Moskvitin with a detachment of Cossacks went to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, laid a prison at the mouth of the Ulya River, and explored the coast for a considerable length. In 1643-1646, V. Poyarkov made a trip to the lower reaches of the Amur. In 1649-1652, E. Khabarov carried out two expeditions to the Amur lands and founded several cities there - Albazin, Achin and others. S. Dezhnev and F. Alekseev reached the eastern tip of Asia on kochs (boats) in 1648. Departing from the Anadyr prison, the detachment of V. Atlasov reached Kamchatka. According to the "petitions" and "tales" of the pioneers, P.I. Godunov in 1667 compiled a map - "Drawing of the Siberian land" Economic geography - M .: Economics, 2006. An important stage in the research of the Far East is associated with the famous Kamchatka expeditions under the command of Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov (1725-1730 and 1733-1743), during which the outlines of the northern part of the Far East were determined, the Aleutian and Commander Islands were discovered, the question of "whether Asia came together with America" ​​was resolved. Geographical discoveries and surveys made in the 18th century prepared the historical voyages of Russian sailors around the world to the shores of the Far East: I.F. Kruzenshtern and Yu.F. Lisyansky (1803-1806), V.M. Golovin (1807- 1809 and 1817-1819), M.P. Lazarev (1813-1816 and 1822-1825), F.P. Litke (1826-1829) and others. In 1849, the expedition of G.I. Nevelsky, the island position of Sakhalin and the possibility of exiting the mouth of the Amur into the sea were established. Strongholds were created in the Far East: Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Vladivostok. Organized settlement of the Far East began in the 50s of the 19th century. It intensified after the abolition of serfdom in 1861 and the adoption of laws on settlers. Interest in the Far East increased when the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began in 1891. Geological, geographical, economic and other studies were launched. All this gave impetus to the development of the productive forces of the Far East: industrial (mining, fishing) and transport enterprises appeared, fur and sea animal (fur seal) trades expanded, agricultural production increased, and trade increased. However, in general, the Far East economically remained an extremely backward region of tsarist Russia. The government saw it as a raw material "appendage" for the metropolis. Only those of the natural resources of the Far East (gold, non-ferrous metals, furs, salmon fish) that gave entrepreneurs high profits were used. Important positions in the economy of the Far East were occupied by foreign monopolies, which ruthlessly exploited its resources and population. Until 1917, the Far East remained a sparsely populated territory. The development of the productive forces of the Far East during the years of Soviet power led to an increase in the population: in 1920, 1.2 million people lived in the region, and in 1980 - 7 million people. The growth rate of the population of the Far East is one of the highest in the country. Now the population of the Far East is more than 7.6 million people. The urban population is 76%. The Far East is the most sparsely populated region of the Russian Federation. The average density of its population is 1.2 people per 1 sq. km. km. The population is distributed very unevenly across the region. The highest density is more than 12 people per 1 sq. km. in Primorsky Krai. The southern part of Sakhalin is quite densely populated. At the same time, in the Republic of Sakha, Magadan and Kamchatka regions, the population density is only 0.3 - 0.8 people per 1 sq. km. km. The population is distinguished by the diversity of the national composition. The vast majority of the population is Russian. Many Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews and a large group of indigenous peoples also live here - Koryaks, Nanais, Nivkhs, Ulchis, Udeges, Itelmens, Evenks, Aleuts, Chukchis, Eskimos, etc.

The concept of "Far East" refers to the entire eastern territory of the Eurasian continent. But in my term paper I would like to touch specifically on the territory that belongs to the Russian Federation. This territory is vast and diverse throughout its length. Only in terms of climatic zones, the Far East region ranges from subarctic to subtropical. This causes a different level of both economic and social level of development of the regions that are located on its territories. The region is of great economic importance in the country's economy. Possessing huge natural and fossil resources, it is one of the most important raw material bases of Russia. The most important feature of the economic and geographical position of the Far Eastern economic region is its great remoteness from the main economic potential of Russia. The area is located on the eastern outskirts of the country, it is separated not only from Moscow, but even from the industrial centers of Siberia by distances measured by many thousands of kilometers. And as before, the only land route is the Trans-Siberian Railway, along which the distance from Moscow to Vladivostok is more than 9300 kilometers, which is about a week away by fast train. Wide access to the Pacific and Arctic Ocean, the crossing of sea routes to the countries of the Pacific Basin make it possible to intensify foreign trade and participate in the international division of labor. In the inter-district division of labor, the Far East is distinguished by mica, fish and seafood, timber and pulp and paper industries, ship repair and fur trade, production of non-ferrous metal ores, diamonds, mica, fish and seafood, timber and pulp and paper industry, ship repair and fur trade. fishery. The metallurgical complex of this economic region, together with that part of it that relates to the extraction and processing of non-ferrous metal ores, and, in particular, precious metals.

1.2 Physical location

Far Eastern economic region

Composition: Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, Jewish Autonomous Region, Amur, Kamchatka, Magadan, Sakhalin Regions, Chukotsky and Koryaksky Autonomous Okrugs. In addition to the mainland, the region also includes the islands: Novosibirsk, Wrangel, Sakhalin, the Kuriles and Commander Islands. Area - 6125.9 thousand square meters. km. (36% of the country's area) Population - 7336 thousand people. (for 1998). Northernmost point - 70°(N) Southernmost point - 43°(S) Easternmost point - 169°40`(W) Westernmost point - 132°(E) The Far East occupies a special, unique geopolitical position. The length of the region from north to south is 4800 km, from west to east - 3000 km (5 time zones). The territory of the region overlooks the seas of the Arctic and Pacific oceans and is located on the land and sea routes of the country. the Pacific and Indian basins, has a 2000-kilometer border with China, a border with the DPRK extends for 60 km; America (Alaska) begins 35 km from Chukotka through the Bering Strait; The 43-kilometer La Perouse Strait separates Sakhalin Island from Japan. The Far East is a concept that includes all regions in the eastern part of Eurasia. But I would like to touch only on the territory belonging to Russia. It is located in a zone of contrasting processes and phenomena, heterogeneous blocks of the earth's crust, various air masses, cold and warm sea currents interact here, representatives of the northern and southern flora and fauna coexist nearby. All this determines the great diversity of natural conditions, the rivers are rich in hydropower, the most full-flowing of them is the Amur. Most of the cities are located in the Khabarovsk Territory. The Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories are comparable in territory to the states of Oregon and California (954 thousand and 662 thousand sq. km), but in terms of population they are five times inferior (4 million and 22 million people). In terms of natural resources, the Russian Far East is not inferior to the US Far West. There are everywhere deposits of coal and brown coal, oil, natural gas, ores of non-ferrous metals (polymetallic, tin, tungsten, mercury, gold, silver), graphite, diamonds, iron and manganese ores, chemical raw materials, and in terms of forest and fur wealth, their can't even compare. Accordingly, due to this, the extraction of these minerals is highly developed. In addition, the most important ports of the east of Russia are also located here. With its vast territory, richest natural resources and minerals, the Far East is at a stage of its economic development when its natural and economic potential has been explored and developed only partially and very little. The predicted reserves of raw materials and natural resources in the region are several times higher than their explored sizes. Also, the rich opportunities of the region represent its peculiar advantages in the conditions of market transformation of the economy of the whole country. According to a number of basic characteristics (economic and geographical location, natural resources, conditions for their development, specialization of the economy), two sub-regions are distinguished in the Far East: North (Yakutia-Sakha and Magadan Region) and South (Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories, Amur, Sakhalin and Kamchatka Regions ). The Far East South is much more favorable for economic development than the North. About 30% of the region's area is home to 80% of its inhabitants. The north, on the contrary, is characterized by harsh nature and sparsely populated areas. The occupations of the population are different: reindeer herding, hunting (fishing); live here: Russians, Evenks, Evens, Chukchi, Koryaks, Yakuts; The main feature of the Far Eastern economic region in terms of nature is its proximity to the Pacific Ocean and its inseparable connection in all respects. The Far East is washed by the seas of the Pacific basin - Bering, Okhotsk, Japan, forming a large marine basin of Russia. All these seas are deep, their bottom is very uneven. Depressions are often replaced by underwater uplifts and ridges, the coasts are steep, slightly indented, and there are few natural protected bays for mooring ships. The seas are separated from the Pacific Ocean by a chain of islands: Aleutian, Kuril, Japanese. To the east of them lies one of the deepest oceanic depressions - the Kuril-Kamchatka. The vast extent of the seas along the eastern outskirts of Russia causes huge differences in their climatic conditions. If the northern part of the Bering Sea is in the subarctic, then the southern part of the Sea of ​​Japan lies in the subtropical region. The flora and fauna of the seas of the Pacific Ocean is much richer than the seas of the Arctic Ocean. In shallow waters, thickets of sea grasses and algae grow. Brown algae, reaching a length of 50 meters, sometimes form real underwater forests. There are many birds on the islands: guillemots, gulls, cormorants, hatchets, white belly, fulmars. Currently, seals, seals, and white whales have commercial value in the Far Eastern seas. Crab fishing is carried out off the western coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The fish resources of the Far Eastern Seas are diverse. The most important fishing areas are the waters of Kamchatka. Sea of ​​Okhotsk, Amur Estuary, coasts of South Sakhalin and Primorye. In the first place in terms of value are migratory salmon fish - chum salmon, pink salmon, sockeye salmon, chinook salmon. For spawning, they go to the Amur, to the rivers of the Okhotsk coast, Kamchatka and Sakhalin. In the Posiet Bay of the Sea of ​​Japan, there is the only enterprise in the country where mollusks (scallops, giant oysters) are bred under natural conditions - highly nutritious and have medicinal properties. The natural conditions of the Far East are characterized by a sharp contrast, which is due to the very large extent of the territory from north to south. Most of the territory is occupied by mountains and highlands. Lowlands occupy only relatively small areas along the river valleys. The most extensive lowland is located in the valley of the Amur and its tributary, the Ussuri. Permafrost is widespread in a significant part of the region, which complicates the construction and development of agriculture. The mountains have an average height of 1000-1500 meters. But some peaks rise to 2000 meters or more. The Pacific coast is dominated by young mountains, as evidenced by volcanic activity. More than 20 volcanoes operate in Kamchatka, the largest of them is Klyuchevskaya Sopka, there are many geysers. The seas washing the Far East are characterized by high ice coverage. First of all, it is characteristic of the Arctic seas of the Arctic Ocean - Chukchi and East Siberian. But the seas of the Pacific Ocean - Bering and Okhotsk - are also cold, with a long ice period and therefore difficult for navigation. Only in the Sea of ​​Japan and in the open waters of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean, which are influenced by the warm Kuroshio current, year-round navigation is possible. The hydrographic network is very extensive and rich in water. Among the largest are the basins of the Lena, Amur, Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma, etc. The rivers concentrate huge reserves of hydropower, are rich in valuable fish species, and are transport routes, including in winter, when winter roads are laid on the ice. The area is also rich in thermal waters. Hot springs, especially in Kamchatka, feed rivers that do not freeze in winter. The origin of geysers is connected with volcanic activity. Hot spring water contains zinc, antimony, arsenic, has medicinal value and opens up great opportunities for creating a resort base. Features of the physical and geographical position determined the diversity of natural and climatic conditions - from the sharply continental to the monsoonal climate of the southeast of the region, which caused uneven settlement and development of the region. In the northern part of the region, the climate is extremely severe. Winter is cold, with little snow, lasts up to 9 months. Almost everywhere there is permafrost. In the Republic of Sakha there is a cold pole of the northern hemisphere. However, a warm, albeit very short, summer makes it possible to develop agriculture in the open field. The southern part of the region has a monsoon climate with cold winters and wet summers. The growing season in the Lower Amur basin is up to 120 days, and only in the south of Primorye - up to 190 days. A large amount of precipitation falling in the summer causes severe waterlogging of the soil, which creates great difficulties for agriculture. Due to the severity of the climate and the remoteness of the territory, the Republic of Sakha and the Magadan region are very rarely populated. The development of these areas has a focal character. The Khabarovsk Territory and the Amur Region are more densely populated.

1.3 Economic and geographical characteristics

The Far East is a Russian outpost on the Pacific Ocean in the eastern part of the Arctic Ocean. The region's vulnerabilities are its vast length, the severity of the climate and permafrost in most of the territory, remoteness and poor transport links with the rest of Russia. 11 Bakanov M.I. Economic geography. - M.: Economics, 2000. In practice, only air transport operates and the railway - Transsib is heavily overloaded (BAM is far from complete). There is almost no road connection. Internal ties between regions are very weak, rivers help out in summer navigation. The actual absence of a land road network determines the weak participation of the region in the territorial division of labor. The Far East accounts for 6% of the total gross product of Russian regions, 5.3% of industrial and 4.1% of agricultural products. At the same time, only 3% of interregional cargo flows are generated in the region. The main task in the development of the economy of the Far East in Soviet times was the organization of the defense of state borders from a threat from the East and the rational deployment of enterprises of the military-industrial complex (MIC) here, providing for the needs of the armed forces of these remote eastern territories of the country, the Pacific Fleet and their invulnerability to sudden strikes. enemy from the west. Therefore, in the country's economy that developed during the Soviet period, a high level of militarization of this sparsely populated region was predetermined, where military-industrial complex enterprises accounted for a high share. They are the centers of concentration of the most qualified workforce and advanced high technologies, represented primarily in the machine-building plants of the military-industrial complex and in other branches of heavy industry. After the collapse of the USSR, the protracted deep economic and political crisis in Russia, the disorderly implementation of programless conversion, the absence of a coherent comprehensive program of “restructuring” and “reforming” the entire economy, the lack of funding and the difficult demographic situation strongly dictate the need not only to preserve high-tech industries in the Far East, but and their further development along with the preservation of the industrial infrastructure of the region, which was created at one time for the needs of the military-industrial complex and the armed forces and is still characterized by the best infrastructure facilities in all of Russia. The development of the regions of the Far East for many years was strictly regulated from the center in order to ensure the defense security of the state, most regions of the region were closed zones, since significant potential for the needs of the military-industrial complex was created here for many years. As a result, for a long time, these regions were economically isolated to a large extent from the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, from their closest neighbors. In recent years, against the backdrop of the dynamically developing economies of many Asia-Pacific countries, the Far Eastern region of Russia, for a number of reasons, has found itself in a position of lagging behind. Now the situation in the Far East is quite difficult. A critical situation has developed in the fuel and energy complex. The enterprises of the Primorsky Territory owe more than 180 billion rubles to the power industry, which leads to the shutdown of most industries and their financial paralysis. Even the largest enterprises such as Dalzavod JSC (Vladivostok) are forced to stop. There is a real undeclared war for energy resources between the regions of the Far East. Thus, oil products coming from Siberia to Kamchatka are confiscated in the ports of Vladivostok and Nakhodka. In 1993, 76 thousand tons of fuel paid for by Kamchatka were confiscated. Such stories are not uncommon in the region. So, coal is delivered to Sakhalin under guard, otherwise the trains with fuel will be confiscated by the Khabarovsk Territory. At present, Japan is the main foreign economic partner in the Far East. A number of long-term agreements were signed with this country on a compensation plan for the development of forest resources in this region, the development of timber processing industries, the production of pulp and paper, the development of the coal industry, transport construction, and the expansion of port facilities. Thanks to these and other agreements, the involvement of all these natural resources in the economic circulation has accelerated, new export bases have been created in this region, remote from the main developed regions and centers, and its transport equipment has been strengthened. With the help of Japanese loans, for example, the coal deposits of South Yakutia (Neryungri) were developed, the BAM - Tynda - Berkakit railway was built, special berths were built in the port of Vanino for reloading coal, timber, containers. In repayment of the loans provided, Japan receives timber, technological chips, Yakut coals. The issues of development of offshore oil and gas deposits of Sakhalin with the participation of foreign firms are considered. One of these Japanese firms, Sodeko, in accordance with an agreement with the former Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR, has been conducting geological prospecting for oil and gas on the Sakhalin shelf since 1975. A feasibility study for the development of some explored deposits by this company is currently being worked out, taking into account environmental problems, the interests of the inhabitants of the island and all of Russia. There are development projects on the same basis of other resources of the region. So, for example, to develop the complex ore deposit Khakanja (near Okhotsk) in the Khabarovsk Territory, containing gold, silver, manganese, a joint venture with equal Russian and foreign shares in the authorized capital should be created. Japanese firms will undoubtedly take part in the tender for the right to develop the Khakanja gold deposit. The development of the Sakhalin shelf is the largest project of interregional importance for the entire Far East. With the commissioning of new fields, it is planned to increase by 2005 the volume of oil production up to 20 million tons, gas - up to 18.9 billion cubic meters. m. The implementation of the project is associated not only with the development of oil and gas production, but also involves a wide range of work on the development of social and industrial infrastructure, which will require the attraction of additional financial resources, construction resources, etc. Funds not only foreign, but also Russian, primarily Far Eastern, firms and companies. The possibility of cooperation with the Khabarovsk Territory is already being considered, in particular, to provide this project with engineering products, which will revive the machine-building base of the region, which is in critical condition due to the loss of sales markets within the country. Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, mechanical engineering and metalworking, shipbuilding and ship repair, and oil refining are developed in the Far East. The forest and woodworking, textile, food and fishing industries are also quite developed. The most important feature of the economic and geographical position of the Far Eastern economic region is its great remoteness from the main economic potential of Russia. The area is located on the eastern outskirts of the country, it is separated not only from Moscow, but even from the industrial centers of Siberia by distances measured by many thousands of kilometers. And as before, the only land route is the Trans-Siberian Railway, along which the distance from Moscow to Vladivostok is more than 9300 kilometers, which is about a week away by fast train. Wide access to the Pacific and Arctic Ocean, the crossing of sea routes to the countries of the Pacific Basin make it possible to intensify foreign trade and participate in the international division of labor. In the inter-district division of labor, the Far East is distinguished by mica, fish and seafood, timber and pulp and paper industries, ship repair and fur trade, production of non-ferrous metal ores, diamonds, mica, fish and seafood, timber and pulp and paper industry, ship repair and fur trade. fishery. In agricultural production, the Far East region specializes in soybean cultivation and reindeer breeding. All branches of market specialization are based on the use of local natural resources. The Far East plays an important role in Russia's maritime and foreign trade relations. For export, the Far East delivers coal, timber, furs, fish, etc. The seas of the Pacific Ocean are very important for the economy of the region: the Bering Sea, the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Sea of ​​Japan. Freezing for a relatively short period, they are of fishery, animal husbandry and transport importance. The largest stocks of salmon fish in the world are concentrated here: chum, seal, chinook, seals, walruses, fur seals live. Forests in the Far East cover about 260 million hectares of the region. Larch, spruce, fir, cedar, broad-leaved species grow in the forests: oak, ash, maple, etc. The vast territory of the Far East region can be divided into three zones according to the level of economic development: southern, middle and northern. The southern zone of intensive development includes the Primorsky Territory, the southern parts of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Amur and Sakhalin Regions. This is the most economically developed part of the Far East. The basis of the economy of the southern zone is formed by the sea, timber and mining complexes. At present, development is proceeding along the path of combining leading industries with service industries and agriculture. The middle zone includes the northern regions of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Amur and Sakhalin regions, and the southern part of the Republic of Sakha. This zone is characterized by relatively high rates of development. The main specialization is the extractive industry, and the service industries are poorly developed. Its economic axis is the Baikal-Amur Mainline, which has made major changes to the territorial structure of the economy of this zone: the formation of an industrial zone of the region is underway. The main tasks of the economic development of the zone, in addition to the construction of a second exit to the Far East, are the development of new mineral deposits and the creation of a potential in the BAM region for the development of the northern part of the region. The formation of the South Yakutsk and Komsomolsk TPK is connected with the economic development of the Baikal-Amur Mainline zone.

1.4 State of the mineral resource base

Mineral resources are traditionally considered one of the main wealth of Russia. The territory of the Far East is unique in this respect. On the territory of this region are concentrated the largest in the whole country deposits of such valuable minerals as precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, as well as very high-quality diamonds. But besides this, other equally useful resources are concentrated in the region. Let's consider them in order. The development of valuable minerals is the main specialization of the region, which determines its place in the Russian economy. Industrial centers associated mainly with the extraction of minerals are significantly removed from each other. Significant potential reserves of mineral resources are located in the regions of Yakutia, Siberia to the east of Altai, with the exception of only Taimyr, Sakhalin and Kamchatka. The most productive resource deposits, which are also the most scarce for the country, are concentrated in the northeast, primarily in Chukotka and Yakutia. The Ural zone has a slightly lower potential compared to the Far East. In the European part of Russia, the Murmansk region, the Belgorod and Kursk regions (the mining zone of the Kursk magnetic anomaly), the Moscow region (phosphorites), several republics of the North Caucasus (polymetals and polymetallic ores) have productive resources. The placement of deposits of non-fuel raw materials is mainly confined to mountainous regions with a wide variety of geological conditions of occurrence and exposure of bedrock. Plain areas covered by thick covers of sedimentary deposits are less favorable for development, since they require large volumes of overburden work. In this respect, the distribution of inorganic mineral resources is asymmetrical to the distribution of fuel stocks. The potential of mineral resources is higher in those areas where industrial development has begun historically recently. This reflects the process of depletion of long-discovered and developed deposits and the movement of the extractive industry to new fishing regions. Tin, tungsten, lead-zinc ores have been discovered and are being developed in the Republic of Sakha, the Magadan region, in the spurs of the Sikhote-Alin. The Far East has large reserves of mercury. The main deposits are located in Chukotka, in Yakutia and the Khabarovsk Territory. Unique deposits of mica have been explored in Tommot on the Upper Aldan. Of great importance are the diamond deposits in the north-west of the Republic of Sakha - "Mir", "Udachnoye", etc. Iron ore reserves are known in the Far East region. The most important is the Aldan iron ore basin with deposits Tayozhnoe, Pionerskoe, Sivaglinskoe, located in the south of Yakutia. The Far East also has large reserves of fuel resources, especially hard and brown coal. However, large coal reserves are located in the Lena Basin, which is very remote from the developed territories. In the south of the Republic of Sakha there is one of the most promising coking coal basins - Yuzhno-Yakutsky. The remaining deposits, relatively small, are scattered throughout the region. Oil and gas provinces have been identified on the territory of the region: on Sakhalin, Kamchatka, Chukotka, in the Magadan region, but so far only the Okha and Tungor oil fields in the north of Sakhalin are being developed. The oil is of high quality, but it is not enough to meet the needs of the region. Gas was discovered in the Leno-Vilyui oil and gas province. This is one of the most important promising gas-bearing regions. The Far East also has reserves of non-metallic raw materials: marl, limestone, refractory clay, quartz sand, as well as sulfur, graphite, mica. The lead-zinc industry has been developed, concentrated in the Primorsky Territory, producing lead-zinc concentrates and lead. At present, new large deposits of lead-zinc ores are being developed - Voznesenskoye and Nikolaevskoye. Tungsten is mined in the Magadan Region and the Primorsky Territory. The Far East is the largest gold-bearing region of Russia, on the territory of which the Kolyma-Indigirskoye, Aldanskoye, Zeya-Selemdzhanskoye, Yanskoye and other deposits are distinguished. An important industrial region for the extraction of alluvial gold is Verkhne-Indigirsky, a part of the larger Kolyma-Indigirsky gold-bearing region, which includes the adjacent territory of the Magadan region. Platinum and the platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium, osmium, ruthenium and iridium) were the last noble metals mastered by mankind. Platinoids always occur together and accumulate in rocks formed from mantle magmas. Platinoid levels are extremely low. The most common among them, platinum and palladium have an average content in the earth's crust of only 0.0000005%, while others are even less.

The diamond mining industry is growing rapidly. Two large mining and processing plants, Mir and Aikhal, have been built, and a new plant is being built. The area serves as the largest supplier of diamonds. The main production area is Vilyuisky, and the largest deposits are Mirny, Udachnoye, Aikhal. In the Far East, phlogopite mica deposits, which are rare in Russia, have been explored on the territory of the Upper Aldan in Tommot.

2. Mining of precious metals and diamonds

2.1 From the history of development

The development of the Far East by Russia began in the 1950s. 19th century, around the same time as the US Far West (1845). In Russia, the first diamond was found in 1829. Somewhat later, river placers with a small amount of small diamonds were discovered. However, despite the ongoing search for 150 years, no significant placers were found in our country. Russia's breakthrough into the number of diamond-producing countries occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. 20th century and is associated with the discovery of the Yakut deposits. For 40 years, dozens more deposits have been discovered in Yakutia. Russia has become one of the leading countries in the production of a wonderful stone. The first own silver in Russia was mined at the Nerchinsk mines in Transbaikalia in 1704. However, it was mined negligibly little. A radical change in the silver industry was outlined only in the 60s. XX century., When they mastered numerous deposits of the Far East. Until the 20th century the main producers of the metal were Brazil and Russia. Its main sources over the past 50 years have been three mining giants: South Africa (Bushveld mines - 50% of world production); Canada (Sudbury mines) and Russia (Norilsk mines) - together 10-12% of world production. Interest in the Far East increased when the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began in 1891. Geological, geographical, economic and other studies were launched. All this gave impetus to the development of the productive forces of the Far East: industrial (mining, fishing) and transport enterprises appeared, fur and sea animal (fur seal) trades expanded, agricultural production increased, and trade increased. However, in general, the Far East economically remained an extremely backward region of tsarist Russia. The government saw it as a raw material "appendage" for the metropolis. Only those of the natural resources of the Far East (gold, non-ferrous metals, furs, salmon fish) that gave entrepreneurs high profits were used. Important positions in the economy of the Far East. The East was occupied by foreign monopolies that ruthlessly exploited its resources and population.

2.2 State of the resource base

According to 1989 data, for many decades the countries of the Americas supply more than 55% of all silver annually. Most of the remaining 45% comes from Australia and Russia. Platinum and the platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium, osmium, ruthenium and iridium) were the last noble metals mastered by mankind. Platinoids always occur together and accumulate in rocks formed from mantle magmas. Platinoid levels are extremely low. The most common among them, platinum and palladium have an average content in the earth's crust of only 0.0000005%, while others are even less.

General features of the state of the diamond industry

The main industrial deposits of Russia are concentrated in three large territorially separated diamond-bearing regions - the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) - 82.4% of reserves and 99.7% of production, the Arkhangelsk region - 17.5% of reserves, the Perm region - 0.1% of reserves and 0 .3% of production. As already mentioned, in the current market conditions, a clear political and strategic program is needed that could fix the problem that exists in Russia.

The explored and approved diamond reserves in Russia are a multiple of the reserves of industrial categories redeemed by diamond mining enterprises for the entire period of existence of the diamond industry in Yakutia (from January 1957 to the present). At the moment, there is a predictive estimate of diamond resources, but, fortunately, this estimate greatly underestimates the actual diamond reserves in the earth's crust on the territory of the Russian Federation. This can only be confirmed by the fact that only recently in Russia new promising deposits have been found, explored and registered in the new diamond-bearing region of Western Yakutia. “A new kimberlite pipe has been discovered in Western Yakutia, which promises to become a major source of diamond mining,” said Viktor Orlov, Chairman of the Russian Committee for Geology and Subsoil Use. This is already the second diamond deposit discovered in the area. In 1994, a diamond-bearing pipe was found, named Botuobinskaya. The probability of discovery of diamond pipes in the Krasnoyarsk Territory is high, he said. Summing up the successes of geologists over the period from 1991 to 1995, V. Orlov said that 234 hydrocarbon deposits were discovered in Russia, including 184 oil fields. Last year, the corresponding figures were 25 and 19. Mineral reserves are of great importance for the region. Ores of non-ferrous metals and rare metals are of interdistrict importance. This is one of the most important gold-bearing regions of Russia. Ore and alluvial gold deposits are concentrated in the basins of the Kolyma, Aldan, Zeya, Amur, Selemdzhi, Bureya, in Chukotka and on the slopes of the Sikhote-Alin.

2.3 Characteristics of the metallurgical industry

The raw material base of the metallurgical industry has a number of features. The content of useful components in raw materials is extremely low in quantitative terms (copper - from 1 to 5%, lead-zinc - from 1.5 to 5.5%, nickel - from 0.3 to 5.5%, tin - from 0.01 up to 0.7%, molybdenum - from 0.005 to 0.04%). In practice, to obtain, for example, 1 ton of copper, it is necessary to process at least 100 tons of ore, nickel - up to 200 tons, tin - up to 300 tons. The consumption of raw materials per 1 ton of finished products is hundreds of times higher than the volume of the finished product, and in the production of rare metals - tens and even hundreds of thousands of times. Exceptional multicomponent raw materials (for example, Ural copper pyrites contain copper, iron, sulfur, gold, cadmium, silver, selenium, tellurium, indium, gallium and other elements, up to 30 in total, for example, Karabash ores in the Chelyabinsk region). Huge fuel intensity and electric intensity of raw materials in the process of its processing (for nickel production - up to 55 tons of fuel per 1 ton of finished products; for zinc - up to 3 tons; blister copper - up to 3.5 tons; alumina - up to 12 tons, etc. ). For the production of 1 ton of aluminum, up to 17 thousand kWh of electricity is required, 1 ton of titanium - up to 20-60 thousand kWh, magnesium - up to 20 thousand kWh, etc. Features of the raw materials and fuel and energy bases have a strong influence on the location of non-ferrous metallurgy, which is: a material- and energy-intensive industry. In this regard, the placement of non-ferrous metallurgy depends mainly on the raw material base. At the same time, enrichment is directly tied to the places of extraction of non-ferrous metal ores, with the exception of those cases when there are no sufficiently reliable sources of water supply nearby. This is due to the fact that ore dressing requires a large amount of water (8-10 thousand m 3 per 1 ton of polymetallic ores, 15-20 m 3 per 1 ton of copper-nickel and other ores containing precious metals). A feature of non-ferrous metallurgy, as already noted, is the high energy intensity of raw materials in the process of its preparation for metallurgical processing and processing. In this regard, the industry distinguishes between fuel-intensive and electric-intensive industries. High fuel intensity (50-55% per 1 ton of finished products) is typical, for example, for the production of nickel, alumina from nephelines (11.5 tons per 1 ton of finished products), blister copper, etc. Aluminum production is characterized by increased electrical intensity ( 17-18 thousand kWh per 1 ton of finished products), magnesium (18-20 thousand kWh), calcium (30-50 thousand kWh), titanium (20-60 thousand kWh). kWh), etc. In general, in the industry, the share of fuel and energy costs ranges from 10 to 50-65% of the total costs per 1 ton of manufactured products. This feature of the raw material base determines the placement of non-ferrous metallurgy in the regions most provided with electricity. Eastern Siberia and especially the Far East are characterized by a high level of development of non-ferrous metallurgy. It is one of the most important industries of the Far East, it accounts for the bulk of the all-Russian production of tin ores, gold, silver, lead-zinc ores, tungsten, and mercury. The enterprises of the gold mining industry are characterized by the most stable levels of mining, in comparison with companies producing other precious metals, as well as the most stable financial position, which is ensured by large-scale production volumes and the ability to maneuver, significant financial resources. In the vast majority of cases, only they can receive superprofits. An example is the 15 gold mining companies in which gold is a core production, annually producing about 45% of the world's volume of mined precious metal.

2.4 Characteristics of the diamond industry

The state of the mineral resource base

The explored and approved diamond reserves in Russia are a multiple of the reserves of industrial categories redeemed by diamond mining enterprises for the entire period of existence of the diamond industry in Yakutia (from January 1957 to the present). At the moment, there is a predictive estimate of diamond resources, but, fortunately, this estimate greatly underestimates the actual diamond reserves in the earth's crust on the territory of the Russian Federation. This can only be confirmed by the fact that only recently in Russia new promising deposits have been found, explored and registered in the new diamond-bearing region of Western Yakutia. “A new kimberlite pipe has been discovered in Western Yakutia, promising to become a major source of the former, the territory we live in is a huge vital space with great resource potential. Here, on an area of ​​about 7 million square meters. km, which is 41% of the country's territory, there are 13 subjects of the Federation. Deposits of iron, manganese, tin, and lead have been explored in the region. This "track record" list can be continued. Of interest are the diamond, timber, fish, hydrocarbon and other resources of the Far East and Transbaikalia, which are significant on the scale of the entire Asia-Pacific region. No doubt - all these are pluses. At the same time, where else can you find such a low population density (just over 6% of the Russian population lives here), an outflow of residents, especially northerners, who leave their homes? Weak economic development of our territory, lack of transport communications are problems that are visible to the naked eye. And all this against the background of the globalization of the world economy, the growing shortage of raw materials, especially in the developed neighboring countries - in Japan, China, the Republic of Korea. There is a regrouping of transnational companies in favor of the Asia-Pacific region. In the 90s, the volume of foreign investment in the countries of the foreign Far East (China, Taiwan, North Korea, the Republic of Korea, Japan) increased five times! Among the two hundred largest corporations in the world, the share of American multinational companies in terms of turnover declined in the last decade of the 20th century from 43% to 29%. During the same time, the share of Japanese transnational companies increased from 22% to 36%.

Thus, the center of gravity of world economic development is moving to the Asia-Pacific countries. To our eastern borders. How can we respond to these external economic challenges? What potential opportunities to use in order not to turn into a raw materials appendage, not to lose its territorial integrity (such extremely undesirable consequences of the negative scenario for the development of the Russian Far East were openly discussed at the congress)? It is impossible not to notice that the story of the establishment of the Russian-Chinese border in the Khabarovsk region, as well as Japan's claims to the Russian Kuriles, clearly reflect this process. That is why the vector of all decisions taken during the congress was aimed at ensuring that the Far East finds its rightful place in the overall process of developing the productive forces of the Asia-Pacific region. There is an important indicator of the dynamics of development of national economies. It is an indispensable sign of improving technological progress. We are talking about the magnitude of the energy component in the final price of the national product. All major world powers are struggling to reduce this indicator. There is a need to seriously engage in the development of a national energy saving program in Russia, based on its objective features, natural and climatic conditions, and spatial extent. This program should also ensure equal attractiveness of energy exports relative to their sale on the domestic market. “Achieve a reduction in the value of the energy component in the final price of domestic products” - this is how it is written in the final document of the congress. It is no coincidence that the content of the speeches from the podium, the center of controversy on the sidelines of the congress, was the problem of energy saving. Whatever we touch - whether mining, industrial production or transport operation - the basis for improving the quality and economic growth of all sectors of the economy without exception is the energy resource. And in this regard, our state has no choice but to carry out the accelerated economic development of its vast territories, and the intensive transport development of the Far East and Transbaikalia plays a key role in solving this problem.

The Far East is relevant today, promising, it allows the development of productive forces for many decades to come. It is important that we do this not by isolated efforts, but by combining the capabilities of the federal center, the region, and large financial and industrial groups, using the mechanisms of private public partnership. A vivid example of this is the prospects for the development of the commercial seaport of Vanino.

Or take at least the Baikal-Amur Mainline. It was designed and built to transport 27 million tons annually, which was then considered a huge achievement, a breakthrough. And today we are talking about 60-70 million tons. And this is the prospect of the next 10-12 years. But for this you need to work out strategic decisions in advance. Moreover, neither individual private investors, nor the state as a whole, nor even the region itself, can solve such problems alone. Only together, in one bundle, will it be possible to obtain the desired result. At the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association. Yu.A. Gagarin and the military theme with fifth-generation fighters, and the medium-range SuperJet-100 aircraft, which triumphantly thundered in Le Bourget in June and received contracts worth more than 200 million dollars. Orders for this car have already been scheduled until 2010 and will continue to come, which we have no doubts about. In the same place, in KnAAPO, amphibious aircraft "Be-103", "Su-80" are produced for small airports. If now the ratio of defense and civilian products at the enterprise is 90 to 10, then in the next two years it will change dramatically and will amount to 50 to 50. The second specialization of the city is shipbuilding. The Amur Shipbuilding Plant, which had been living in problems and shortages for ten years, nevertheless remained afloat. The enterprise will work for the development of the Sakhalin shelf, produce chemical tankers, seismic survey vessels, tugboats and other civil vessels. And not only for Russia, but also for export: to Germany, Vietnam, India.

The third direction in Komsomolsk-on-Amur is metallurgy, the Amurmetal plant, which, with the support of its main shareholder, has risen from its knees, is working steadily, and is expanding its production capacity. And, finally, an oil refinery as part of Rosneft. It has gained a second wind, its management has a lot of plans to expand the range of products, to ship to seaports, and to export. In the future, the creation by Evrazholding in the city of Amursk of a plant for deep processing of wood and the production of paper products. Urgal also has good opportunities for development, where today more than 2 million tons of coal are mined. SUEK enters it with big plans and significant investments. We are talking about increasing production to 5-7 million tons. For a number of companies, like Russian ones, starting from ...........