Russia Geography & Climate

Russia covers about seventeen million square kilometres — roughly an eighth of the world’s inhabited land — spans eleven time zones, and borders fourteen countries. It is nearly twice the size of the next largest country.

West of the Urals

The East European Plain holds Moscow, Saint Petersburg and the great majority of the population: low, rolling and crossed by the Volga, the longest river in Europe, which drains into the Caspian rather than any ocean.

The Urals and Siberia

The Ural mountains form the conventional divide between Europe and Asia. East of them lies the West Siberian Plain, one of the largest areas of flat land and wetland on earth, then the Central Siberian Plateau and the mountains of the far east. Much of it is permafrost — ground frozen year-round, covering around two thirds of the country and now thawing, which is destabilising buildings and releasing methane.

Lake Baikal

The oldest and deepest lake in the world at over 1,600 metres, holding around a fifth of the planet’s unfrozen fresh water and a set of species — including a freshwater seal — found nowhere else. It is UNESCO-listed and freezes solid in winter.

Kamchatka

A peninsula on the Pacific with around thirty active volcanoes, geysers and one of the densest brown bear populations anywhere, also UNESCO-listed.

Vegetation bands

From north to south: Arctic tundra, then the taiga — the largest forest on earth, covering more of the planet’s surface than the Amazon — then steppe in the south. Only a small share of the country is arable.

Russia is so large that generalisation fails, but most of it is continental — far from any moderating ocean — which means long, cold winters and short summers that can be genuinely hot.

European Russia

Moscow averages around −7°C in January with reliable snow cover from November to March, and 20 to 24°C in July with thunderstorms. Saint Petersburg is milder and considerably damper, with grey skies for much of the winter and the white nights in June when the sun barely sets.

Siberia

The extremes are here. Yakutsk is the coldest city on earth, averaging below −38°C in January, and nearby Oymyakon has recorded close to −68°C — the lowest temperature ever measured for a permanently inhabited place. The same region reaches above 30°C in July, giving the widest annual range anywhere.

The far east and the south

Vladivostok has a monsoon influence, with wet summers and dry cold winters. The Black Sea coast around Sochi is humid subtropical — palm trees, tea plantations and mild winters — which is why the Winter Olympics there needed mountains an hour inland.

The Arctic

Tundra and permafrost, with polar night in midwinter and midnight sun in summer. Murmansk, above the Arctic Circle, is ice-free year round because of the North Atlantic Drift.

What the cold means in practice

Russian cities are built for it. Buildings are centrally heated to a degree visitors find stifling, double doors and enclosed porches are standard, and the metro doubles as a warm through-route in winter. The practical rule is layers you can shed indoors, because the difference between −15°C outside and 24°C inside is the thing that actually catches people out.

A changing picture

Russia is warming faster than the global average, and permafrost thaw is already damaging infrastructure across Siberia and the Arctic while wildfire seasons in the taiga have lengthened.