The Soviet Union: Epic Land (1971)

[Music] s me [Music] God GL [Music] me [Music] yeah oh weing uping [Music] the Soviet Union the largest country in the world a country so immense that it reaches is almost halfway around the globe encompassing 11 different time zones when the first rays of dawn strike the Far Eastern shores of Siberia near Alaska the sun is already beginning to set in the western part of the country near Scandinavia the Soviet Union contains almost one sixth of the world's land surface in fact its total area is greater than the United States Canada and Mexico all put together a vast sub continent straddling Europe and Asia stretching from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the East and from the Hindu Kush mountains in the South to the Arctic Ocean in the north this land historically known as Russia is a sprawling giant as an old zist proverb puts it Russia is not a state but a world [Music] the poet of the Revolution Alexander block proclaimed Russia is a sphinx exalted and Afflicted part of Russia's Affliction is its Geographic situation which gives it a generally harsh climate [Music] most of the country lies in the same latitudes as Canada Moscow the capital is as far north as lower Hudson Bay Russia has the dubious distinction of having the coldest town in the world veran where the temperature has reached 84° below zero spring THS create swamps and marshes which swarm with mosquitoes during the brief [Music] Summers much of the Soviet Union has little rainfall and is plagued by [Music] drugs between these lands of sand and snow stand the greatest forests in the world the Taiga the Tiga covers close to 1 half of the total area of the Soviet Union parts of the forest have never been visited by man vast stretches of land are still relatively uninhabited [Music] one1 of the country is a land of steps or prairies much like the American Midwest out of the rich black Earth of the stpp land grow fields of grass and [Music] grain the fertile soil of the Steep land forms the agricultural base that feeds the third most populous nation in the world the USSR this region has become known as the Fertile triangle the fertile triangle has its broad base on the western borders of the Soviet Union with corners on the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea from there this wedge of Farmland extends Eastward across the Ural Mountains into Siberia until it is finally pinched to a point between the Siberian forests and the Central Asian deserts the majority of the Soviet people live in the European step land west of the urals in this most heavily populated area are the great European cities of Moscow and Leningrad along with many other industrial and urban centers but the country is rapidly developing and expanding toward the North and the East where new cities are springing up in the once sparsely populated Siberia although often used interchangeably Russia and the Soviet Union are not quite the same thing after the 1917 Revolution Russia became merely the largest and most dominant power in the Union of Soviet Socialist republics clustered around Russia are the 14 other republics altogether they take up only a quarter of the total area of the Soviet Union these republics are mostly made up of minority nationalities which were conquered by Imperial Russia or taken into to the Soviet Union in the' 40s they are the three Baltic states Estonia lvia and Lithuania belor rusia or white Russia the Ukraine and Moldavia the three transcaucasian republics Georgia Armenia and azerbajan and the five Central Asian republics Kazakhstan usbekistan kisia turkmenia and Tajikistan all to the south of Russia in the north of Russia in the tundra of the Arctic Circle herds of Reindeer roam the reaches of snow searching for food [Music] [Music] the people of the north depend on the reindeer for survival [Music] see [Music] [Music] throughout the land this ageold intimate struggle with nature has given the Russian people a deep love of the earth and a strength of spirit tempered by hardship this strength of the Russian people and the severity of their Winters have been allies in decimating the ranks and ultimately defeating the armies of foreign Invaders from Napoleon to [Music] Hitler although the Arctic winter can be an ally against enemies it is decidedly not a friend to Soviet Shi most Soviet sea ports freeze in Winter the Black Sea in the extreme South of the country has become a popular resort [Music] area ever since Jason and The Argonaut sailed across it searching for the Golden Fleece the Black Sea has been famed for its shipping trade between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea to the east is the region of the Caucasus where the country's first important oil fields were discovered near [Music] Baku the culture of the caucuses is as rich as its surroundings [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] what ch [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Arab geographers called the Caucasus jaalas mountain of languages the people of the caucuses even now speak some 50 different languages in dialects [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] might [Applause] [Music] [Music] sheep are hered mainly in the higher and drier areas of dagistan Armenia and aeran the Caucasus an area rich in raw materials remains a distinctly separate region tucked away in a pocket south of the Ukrainian plane which lies up north in the fertile triangle [Music] the all [Music] see [Music] [Music] mechanization is increasing but most of the labor on Collective and State Farms is still done by hand and most of the workers on the farm are women the Soviet Union lost millions of men in the war against the [Music] Germans the land is owned either by the collectives or by the state in the name of the people but the farmers are allowed to have small private plots to raise their own vegetables and farm animals these kitchen Gardens cover little more than 3% of the cultivated land yet they produce a sub substantial amount of the country's agricultural products The Perennial problem of Soviet agriculture is to produce and transport to Market enough food to support a growing Urban population [Music] [Applause] Moscow the capital of the central government and the largest city in the country 50 years ago the City's population numbered only slightly over a million people now over 6 million men women and children live in Greater Moscow over 800 years ago Moscow started out as a small River Trading Post since then the city has soar in size and is now the Hub of Soviet Transportation the center of culture and the seat of government the Communist Party controls the government and the government controls the country from the the Kremlin in Red Square near the Kremlin is Lenin's tomb a National Shrine for the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution Northwest of Moscow along the Nava river is the city built by Zar Peter the Great [Music] St Petersburg was the capital of Imperial Russia for 200 years some people called it the Venice of the north because of its canals and Beauty after Lenin's death the city was renamed Leningrad in his honor this city which the poet Pushkin appraised as the gem of the northern world is a major Seaport in the greatest ship building Center in the country since the revolution the entire country's energies have been focused on building heavy industry as an early bolik poet put it we have forgotten the aroma of grass and of spring flowers we have fallen in love with the strength of steam and the force of dynamite with the singing of sirens and the motion of axles and weeds we have become one blood with the metal and our souls have merged with the [Music] machines the expanding industrial economy has been held back by a lack of Transportation especially in Siberia [Music] Siberia usually calls up ominous images of [Music] Exile a folk expression says poor Russia so far from God so close to [Music] [Applause] [Music] Siberia the transiberian railroad was originally built in zaris times the lone track spans the Siberian Wilderness stretching to the Pacific [Music] Ocean railroads are the backbone of Soviet Transportation historically most of the development of the manth Siberian territory has taken place within a short distance of the railroad tracks [Music] the first Russian colonists to Brave the harsh Winters and hostile Wilderness came as fur Trappers fishermen and Prospectors for gold [Music] the whole land mass of the United States could easily be swallowed up within the dense Siberian [Applause] Forest the Soviet Union has 1th of all the standing timber in the world over 200 years ago a Russian Visionary MV L monosof predicted the power of Russia will grow with Siberia the really prodigious wealth of Siberia lies underneath the Earth pockets of gold diamonds and platinum ores of iron and aluminum fields of coal pools of oil and natural gas most vital minerals can be found somewhere in [Music] Siberia as resources are found and extracted from the earth local industry begins to spring up [Music] [Applause] [Music] lack of an indigenous Workforce has slowed down the development of Siberian industry nevertheless sophisticated Urban centers of learning and science are springing up east of the Euros the best known is academic City which lies in the center of Siberia the Great Rivers of Siberia are natural storehouses of hydroelectric power for the Soviet Union the dam at brat which is more than 3 Mi long produces the world's cheapest electric power [Music] unfortunately the Siberian rivers flow northward into the Arctic leaving lands to the South subject to parching drought and USC proverb says where there is no water there is no land with water the desert flowers with fruit [Music] [Applause] you're [Music] with irrigation usbekistan produces 2/3 of the Soviet cotton crop and one half of the country's Raw [Music] Silk the cities of Central Asia like Samaran bukara and tashkin date back to ancient [Music] times once ruled by the Persians Alexander the Great and the Mongols this area is also rapidly advancing into modern [Music] times teaming with 130 different nationalities the Soviet Union has is a people as varied as the land is vast [Music] be [Music] [Laughter] [Music] the Soviet Union the largest country in the world [Music] [Applause] [Music] s [Applause] [Music] GL [Applause] [Music]