Altai Krai
Encyclopedia
Altai Krai is a federal subject
Federal subjects of Russia
Russia is a federation which, since March 1, 2008, consists of 83 federal subjects . In 1993, when the Constitution was adopted, there were 89 federal subjects listed...

 of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 (a krai
Krai
Krai or kray was a type of an administrative division in the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR, and is one of the types of the federal subjects of modern Russia ....

). It borders with, clockwise from the south, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk Oblast
Novosibirsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in southwestern Siberia. Its administrative and economic center is the city of Novosibirsk. Population: -Overview:...

 and Kemerovo Oblast
Kemerovo Oblast
Kemerovo Oblast , also known as Kuzbass after the Kuznetsk Basin, is a federal subject of Russia , located in southwestern Siberia, where the West Siberian Plain meets the South Siberian mountains...

s, and the Altai Republic
Altai Republic
Altai Republic is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the town of Gorno-Altaysk. The area of the republic is . Population: -Geography:...

. The krai's administrative center is the city of Barnaul
Barnaul
-Russian Empire:Barnaul was one of the earlier cities established in Siberia. Originally chosen for its proximity to the mineral-rich Altai Mountains and its location on a major river, the site was founded by the wealthy Demidov family in the 1730s. In addition to the copper which had originally...

. Population:

The krai's economy depends on agriculture.

Geography

Altai Krai has rolling foothills, grasslands, lakes, rivers, and mountains.
The climate is severe with long cold dry winters and hot, usually dry summers. The region's main waterway is the Ob River
Ob River
The Ob River , also Obi, is a major river in western Siberia, Russia and is the world's seventh longest river. It is the westernmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean .The Gulf of Ob is the world's longest estuary.-Names:The Ob is known to the Khanty people as the...

. The Biya
Biya River
The Biya River is a river in the Altai Republic and Altai Krai in Russia. It forms the Ob River as it joins the Katun River. The Biya River is 301 km long; the area of its drainage basin is 37,000 km². It flows out of the Teletskoye Lake. The river freezes up in the mid-November to early December...

, Katun, and Chuya River
Chuya River
The Chuya River is a river in the Altai Republic in Russia, a right tributary of the Katun River . The Chuya is 320 km long, the area of its drainage basin is 11,200 km². The river freezes up in October - early November and breaks up in late April....

s are also important. The biggest lakes are Lake Kulundinskoye, Lake Kuchukskoye, and Lake Mikhaylovskoye.
Altai Krai has huge reserves of raw materials, especial materials used for building, as well as significant mineral reserves. These include nonferrous metals, lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 and iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 ores, manganese
Manganese
Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...

, tungsten
Tungsten
Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...

, molybdenum
Molybdenum
Molybdenum , is a Group 6 chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42. The name is from Neo-Latin Molybdaenum, from Ancient Greek , meaning lead, itself proposed as a loanword from Anatolian Luvian and Lydian languages, since its ores were confused with lead ores...

, bauxite
Bauxite
Bauxite is an aluminium ore and is the main source of aluminium. This form of rock consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite Al3, boehmite γ-AlO, and diaspore α-AlO, in a mixture with the two iron oxides goethite and hematite, the clay mineral kaolinite, and small amounts of anatase TiO2...

, and gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. Forests cover about 60,000 km² of the krai's land. See also Geography of South-Central Siberia
Geography of South-Central Siberia
This article covers the region of Siberia west of Lake Baikal and north of the Altai Mountains. It is intended totie together a number of articles that are hard to understand in isolation....

.

History

This area is part of a great crossroads in the ancient world. Nomadic tribes crossed through the territory during periods of migration. The nomadic tribes were composed of different peoples. Archeological sites reveal that ancient humans lived in the area. The Altay people
Altay people
The Altay or Altai are an ethnic group of Turkic people living in the Siberian Altai Republic and Altai Krai and surrounding areas of Tuva and Mongolia. For alternative ethnonyms see also Teleut, Tele, Telengit, Mountain Kalmuck, White Kalmuck, Black Tatar, Oirat/Oirot.The Uriankhai people were...

 are a Turkic people, some of whom have settled here, who were originally nomadic and date back to the 2nd millennium BCE.

Industry

The krai is situated in the southeastern part of Western Siberia and is part of the West Siberian economic region
West Siberian economic region
West Siberian economic region tr.: Zapadno-Sibirsky ekonomichesky rayon) is one of twelve economic regions of Russia.This vast plain—marshy and thinly populated in the north, hilly in the south—is of growing economic importance, mostly due to the abundance of natural resources: oil, coal, wood, water...

 along with Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk, and Tyumen Oblasts and the Altai Republic. The krai is favorably located close to major sources of raw materials, has a well-developed infrastructure, especially in the area of heavy industry, and an abundance of natural resources. It is a major industrial and agricultural region of the country. As in the rest of Russia, the economic restructuring of the 1990s led to a marked economic decline in Altai Krai, particularly in industry and agriculture. However, there is now reason to believe that the krai's economy is stabilizing. Its present economic prospects are good due to the presence of abundant local raw materials, high scientific potential, leading technologies, skilled personnel, and a low-cost labor force. The sales market extends far beyond the borders of the West Siberian economic region. The krai administration is interested in foreign investments and is creating the necessary conditions for setting up joint ventures.

There are more than 2000 industrial companies operating in both heavy and light industry. The leading sectors are the power, engineering, chemical and petrochemical, building material, textile, and light industries. Output is currently increasing in certain industries for the first time since perestroika. This increase is particularly noticeable in the flour-, grain-, and feed-milling and chemical and petrochemical industries and in individual heavy industry sectors, tractor production.

Small and medium business is developing rapidly in Altai Krai, which is a necessary condition for economic stability and growth. Today, nearly a quarter of the entire working population is employed in this sector.

Agriculture

Altai Krai is one of Russia's most important agricultural regions. Development of the krai's lands began in the second half of the 18th century; and peasants from other Russian regions began resettling here in 1861. By 1917, the krai's rural population had reached 1,998,000 people and the total area under cultivation was 25,060 square kilometres.

Today, farmland covers an area of 110,000 km², of which 69,220 km², or nearly 41% of the total area of the krai, is cropland. The main crops are hard varieties of spring wheat, buckwheat, millet, peas, barley, oats, and potatoes and other vegetables. This is this only region of Siberia where sunflowers, soybeans, sugar beets, and certain kinds of fruit grow.

In 1960, the State Economic Council under the Council of Ministers of the USSR carried out comprehensive zoning of Altai Krai, which divided the krai into seven natural and economic agricultural zones. Wide temperature swings are characteristic of the krai's climate, so that ensuring harvest stability is not easy. It requires a specific approach to developing cropland in order to increase farming efficiency. The Kulundinskaya Plain, the Priobskoe Plateau, and the left and right banks of the Ob River are well developed agriculturally. Natural fodder land, including hayfields and pasture, occupies 39,060 km², which includes 11,930 km² of hayfields and 27130 km² of pasture.

Livestock farming specializes in meat, milk, wool, and egg production. Altai Krai is a major wool producer and an important base for breeding fine-fleeced pedigreed sheep, which makes it possible to export more than 30,000 head of pedigreed sheep per year. The territorial market also offers pedigreed swine, poultry, meat, eggs, honey, and wild products such as deer antlers, furs, and pelts.

Fruit-growing in Altai is made possible by specialists of the internationally known Lisavenko Horticultural Research Institute, which has developed a range of fruit and berry varieties adapted to the climate.

Today, Altai Krai not only meets the agricultural product requirements of its own population, but also the requirements of many other Russian regions. Altai exports many kinds of cereals, as well as processed grain products such as wheat and rye flour, pasta products, sugar beets, sunflower seeds, and flax fiber. The krai is Siberia's largest grain, sugar, and meat producer and its second-largest cheese producer.

Demographics

As of the 2002 Census, Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 form an overwhelming majority of the population, at 92%. Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 are the second-largest group, at about 3% (see Mennonite settlements of Altai
Mennonite settlements of Altai
Mennonite settlements of Altai arose after the 19 September 1906 act of the Duma and State Council of Imperial Russia, which provided for a resettlement bureau to distribute free land in Altai Krai...

). Other groups include Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 (2%) , Kazakhs
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

 (0.4%) , Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

 (0.35%), Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...

 (0.32%), Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 (0.31%), and people of other ethnicities.
  • Births : 28,209 (2007) & 30,951 (2008)
  • Deaths : 37,402 (2007) & 37,664 (2008)


During the first three months of 2009, there were around 7,484 births (1% higher than that of 2008). Only 12 raions out of 72 were having a natural population growth during the same period (Barnaul, Belokurikha, Slavgorod, ZATO Sibirsky, Burlinsky, Deutsche Nationalkreis Halbstadt, Rubtsovsk, Soviet, Soloneshensky, Tretyakovsky and Habarsky Raions were having natural population growth).

Politics

On August 7, 2005 the krai's then-head of administration Mikhail Yevdokimov
Mikhail Yevdokimov
Mikhail Sergeyevich Yevdokimov was a Russian entertainer and politician.Yevdokimov was born in Stalinsk , western Siberia. After a long career as a comedian, actor and singer, he had entered politics by 2003. In April 2004, he became governor of the Altai Krai region of Russia after defeating...

died in a car crash.

External links

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