Page 146 - Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors, Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors. Vol. 1

Although the winter in this climatic zone is severe, nevertheless, all the other seasons
of the year are present: a very hot, almost tropical summer, short and cold spring and
autumn and a long and very cold winter. In principle, forest-tundra and north taiga
are the winter quarters for most animals of the Arctic climatic zone. In particular,
reindeer migrate here after the arctic summer and people follow them.

In the conditions of a distinctly continental climate with long cold winters, man
appears to be completely dependent on nature. And if the north taiga and forest-
tundra are rich in both berries and mushrooms and wild birds in summer, it is very
difficult to find food during the long winter. Man who has developed this land is
forced to rely only on what the pretty severe nature of these lands can give. Although
the variety of animal and vegetable forms of this climatic zone cannot be compared
with the living nature of the Arctic Zone, nevertheless, these lands are still unable to
feed a large number of people, if we gather them on a small territory. Human settle-
ments in the forest-tundra and north taiga are not numerous and located at enormous
distances from each other.

Only small communities which are mainly engaged in gathering in summer and
hunting in winter are able to survive in such living conditions. And again, man only
takes from nature what it can give him and fully depends on it. The severe conditions
of existence and sparseness of population do not create optimal conditions for man’s
evolutional development. And again, man came to these lands, being forced out by
other people, from lands more suitable for living. Most of the inhabitants of this cli-
matic zone were people of the yellow race, to whom the people of the white race
gave these empty lands for living. The tribes which came to these lands almost
stopped in their evolutional development at the level which they had before their arri-
val. Why this happened, I will tell later. It is important now to comprehend the con-
nection between the evolutional development of man as a reasoning creature and his
environmental conditions.

When living in extreme conditions, man is forced to fight for his life every day
on those terms which nature offers; he has no choice — he has either to accept them
or die. Hard environmental conditions impose certain ways of conduct on man which
give no chance of evolutional development. The poverty of the Arctic ecological sys-
tem makes man move constantly from one place to another, because the vegetable bi-
omass produced on the surface during the short summer is unable to feed a group of
more than one family and then only for a short period of time. This obliges people to
disperse over tundra and not stay too long in the same place. Certainly, people do not
eat up mosses and lichens, herbage and bushes, but exactly the vegetable biomass de-
termines the variety of animal species and the amount of individuals of every species
of living organisms per unit of area. Exactly the density of the population of animal
species which man uses as food are those determinative factors that form the way of
life of the humanoid inhabitants of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic climatic Zones.

The basis of the human food chain on these territories is the semi-domestic rein-
deer which, eating mosses and lichens, permanently moves over the tundra. As a con-
sequence, people are in permanent motion, following these animals. The problem is
that mosses and lichens grow pretty slowly and the reindeer are forced to move to a

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