europe
relative location
relative location
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europe in world system: Roman Empire
- established in 753 BC
- banks of TIber river
engineering, roads, and Rome
legacy of europe
-large scale territorial integration
- created a sense of being "European" for citizens over vast territory
true empire
- Inca
- cohesive economic, political
- cultural systems, vast highways water infrastructure
- all roads lead to TOme (52000 mi)
Rome
� � worlds pop lived in Roman Empire
� first city ever to reach 1 million people
� required a hinterland of 120 million people to support it
� when it lost territory the urban hierarchy and Rome became unsustainable
� 2nd Century 1.2 million (peak)
o hinterland crumbled
� 1198 AD 35,000 people ? population shrunk (Venice grew: 78,000)
feudal systems (medieval times)
� Loyalty to religious and aristocratic authority
� Not to a shared sense of community or region
� There was no large scale sense of being united as with the Roman Empire
Rothenburg, Germany
The wall is still in tact"
famous wall city
San Gimignano
� In Italy: famous for towers
� In 13 century, when the town was flourishing:
o 72 towers stood
o 14 now
� towers provided urban security for rich families
Bologna
� Best preserved medieval city in Europe
� Important Roman city and thrived during medieval times
Europe: Nation- States
- cultural and territorial identity
- solidified: 18th cent (17-1800)
Result of Nation- State
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Imperialism and Colonialism
� Colonization: extraction of primary commodities ? gold/silver, slaves, opium ? led to Industrial Revolution
"The sun never sets on" The British Empire
results of imperialism
� by WWI, few places in the would remained without the stamp of an European state
� European construct to use latitude and longitude to draw boundaries
� Leads today's world map
� Colonial legacies all over the world
physical landscapes of Europe
� Western Uplands
� North European lowland
� Central uplands
� Alpine Mountains
Great European Plain
� East-West European route in North Europe
o Historical invasion route across North Europe (France-Russia)
Climate of Europe
� Seas moderate the climate (warm and moist)
o Maritime- weather will be less variant
� More continental climate to the east
� Mediterranean climate in the south
� Northern ? always rain
Volcanic Belt in Italy
� Along the west coast coastal hills/extinct volcanic calderas
� 7 active volcanoes- Vesuvius and Me Etna
o Vesuvius- 12 eruptions in last 200 years
� 1 of the most dangerous in the world
� 3 million people live under it ? fertile soil
� most famous eruption in 79 AD
� buried Pompeii and Herculaneum
� 10 ft of volcanic ash- not discovered until 1748
Economic sectors
� Primary? natural resource extraction
� Secondary ? manufacturing
� Tertiary ? services
� Quaternary ? information
Demographic transition model
what the trend is:
- section 1: low birth rate (false)
- death rate so low
Agricultural Rev began?
1750s in Europe
Industrial Rev dev where?
in UK between 1750-1850
- evolved from technical innovations that occurred in BRitish industry
- major increase in urbanization
- produced distinct spatial pattern
-London and Paris: core of Europe
Europe Population density
-pop density: 256 persons per square mile
- urbanization: 76%
In European cities, you're more likely to find:
� High suburban densities
� Apartments (Romans 1st)
� Greenbelts
� Public transportation
� Land scarcity
� Centralized
� Government involvement in urban planning
Europe's Pop implosion
� Falling share of the worlds population
� Fertility is an all time low
� Fewer young people
� Smaller working age population
� Immigration partially offsetting losses
Italian Population
� Lowest birth rate in world
� 1.3 births per woman
� 2.1 is required to stable population
� 1st country in world to have more people over 60 than under 20
� 2/3 of all single men and women live at home until marriage
� Esercito di mammoni ? army of mommy's boys
� Italian culture and expensive cost of housing reason why young people rarely live on their own
� Negative pop growth
Supernationalism
� Venture involving three or more countries
� Political, economic, and or cultural cooperation to promote shared objective
� European supernaturalism stated in 1944 Benelux Agreement, and economic union btwn Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg
European Union (EU)
� Original members (12)
o Western Europe plus Greece
� Effective Nov 1 1993
� Non-members:
o Norway- ranked best country to live in for 5 yrs in a row
o Switzerland- always in top 15 places to live
European SUper nationalism
� Why would anyone want to give away international autonomy
o Coordinate policy among members:
� Economics
Trade, support, current
� Defense
Larger forces, big brother
� Justice and home affairs
each country used to having own current sooo
high transaction costs
15 of teh 27 EU members participate in Euro currency-
Eurozone
-exceptions: UK, Denmakr, Sweden
Supernationalism Problems
� Disparities in levels of economic dev
o Bailouts? Greece, Spain, Ireland
o Saved to keep Euro afloat
� 1/3 budget
o help backward regions to catch up
o restructure declining industries
o diversify agriculture
o revitalize cities
� Loss of autonomy
� Bureaucracy
� Cultural barriers
� Devolution
Regional Europe
� European Regions: Western (France, Germany)
� British Isles
� Northern
� Mediterranean
� Eastern
Western Europe
� Divided into communist east and democratic west until The Wall come down in 1989
� Created Regional disparities
o East and west
o South (Bavaria)
Berlin
� Cultural and intellectual center of Europe
� Severely damaged during WWII
� Berlin Wall located
o "Iron Curtain" separated W Europe and Eastern Bloc during Cold War
o fall of the BW paved the way for German Renunciation in 1900
� Today
o Largest city in Germany
King Ludwig II of Bavaria
castle that Disney modeled
Folk Fortress
� A stronghold are with natural defensive qualities, useful in the defense of a country against invaders
� Mountains-Switzerland
� Escarpments-Paris
� Oceans- US and UK
� Climate- Russia
Buffer zones/ State
� An independent but small ands weak country lying between two powerful countries
� Mongolia- China/Russia
� Poland- Germany/Russia
� Belgium- France/Prussia and UK and Netherlands
Germany
the country in them middle folk fortress and buffer zones of the Great European Plain
Britain
folk fortress, island
France
folk fortress, island of france
Benelux
buffer zone
Poland
buffer zone
Baltic states
buffer zones
Russia
folk fortress, winters distance
Symmetry, not stability
Geographic strategies of German "survival" WWII
-"Lebensraum": living space
- defensive control of the buffer zones (prevent attack from E&W
Unification of German people
irredentism- claiming someone else's territory because their people live there
- Austria and Czechoslovakia 1st- no repercussion
- Poland - WWII
Geography of modern Germany
Post WWII, they became buffer zone between cold war powers
West NATO
to keep Russians out, The Americans in and the Germans down
East Warsaw pact
Soviet Union
France
� #1 tourist destination in the world
� US and Spain battle for #2
o US $92 billion in revenues
o Spain $53
o France $48
Paris- classic Primate city
� Characterizes of Primate City
o Country's largest city
o Disproportionately larger than the 2nd largest urban center ? more than twice the size
o Expressive of the national culture
o Usually, but not always, the capital
o Ex: London and Athens
Paris: site and situation
located at center of the Paris basin on Seine River
- Ii de la Cite
La Defense (Paris)
o Saucer: shaped basin
o Hills with two uneven slopes
o Once gentle slope
o One steep slope
� Faces away from Paris
France largest Muslim minority in W Europe
- 6 mil or just under 10% of the pop that are Muslim
-origins in Frances' former N African colonies
-integration- source of political debate
-France 1st EU state to ban the wearinf of the Burqa in public
Benelux Countries
Netherlands (50% of land below sea level
Belgium (N: Flemish; S:French)
Luxembourg (Worlds only remaining sovereign grand ducky)
Randstad
3 cities: Amsterdam, Rotteradm, The Hague
-one of the most densely populated regions in Europe
� relatively free of the urban sprawl
� strict zoning laws
� Rotterdam: largest port in Europe
� 1972-2004 worlds busiest port
� overtaken by Shanghai then Singapore
Holland
� Is the core region of the Netherlands, not another name for the Netherlands
� Tulips, clogs, windmills ? pumping water out
Amsterdam
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Alpine States
� Austria
� Liechtenstein
� Switzerland
o They are all landlocked,
o Mountainous,
� Glaciations (U shaped glacial toughs)
o Well out
British Isles
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London: site and situation
� Site: deep water port ? formed from glaciers
o Close to continental Europe
� Break of bulk point (port/air plain) switch of transport
Devolution
� Regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government
o Ex: Scotland and Wales in the UK
Cultural differences and devolution: Basque region in Spain
o Strong cultural identity (not so much about power)
o Own language
o Won a little autonomy
cultural differences and devolution: Catalans in Barcelona, Spain
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cultural differences and devolution: Belgium
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Four "motors" (1-4)
� 1. Catalonia - Barcelona region of Ppain
� 2. Southern France, especially Lyon
� 3. Stuttgart region: Germany
� 4. Milan region (Po Valley, Lombardy region of Italy)
characteristics of four "motors
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four "motors
� Local specialization more pronounced
o Dijon, France- mustered
o Gouda, Netherlands- Cheese
� Not quite as efficient as the US due to state nationalism
� They are different countries that did fight one another in WWII
Mediterranean Europe
� A discontinuous region, but all on the Mediterranean sea
� On the periphery
� Roman legacies
� Mediterranean climate
Italy
� Most populated and economically advanced of med countries
� Best connected to the European core ? get through with trophes
� Displays a sharp north/couth contrast
o Ancona Line
Po Valley (North)
� Triangular region between alps and Apennines
� Leading agricultural region of Italy
� Turin, Milan, and Venice
� High price, high quality consumer products
o Gucci, Armani, D&G, Findi, Prada, Versace
Milan
� Regional center of importance
� 2nd largest city, but #1 in:
o financial, industrial, high tech, commercial
� historical importance
o St. Gotthard Pass to Switzerland and N Europe
Mezzoginorno
� "the middle of the day" land of the overhead sun
� south of the Ancona line
o slow pace of life
o slow economic center
o Mafia controlled
� Six regions
Po Valley secessionist movement
-economic gap between N&S
� One of the many reason informal sector has emerged in both north and south
o Many companies run off the books
o Almost 30% of the Italian economy in informal sector
Northern league est in 1991 (Po Valley)
o Advocates for independence in the north to be called Padania
o Middle class business people who are fed up with taxes, bureaucracy, and immigrants
o North and south cultural and economic differences
Venice
� Largest city in medieval Europe
� Head of navigation of Adriatic sea
� Capital of Venetian Republic
� Naval base commercial empire in the eastern med sea
Venice: Site
o Island in the middle of the lagoon
o Most protected from land and sea enemies and storms
o Surrounded by submerged sand banks (shoals) that were known only to locals
o 118 islands, 150 canals
Vatican City
� an enclave within Rome
o a piece of territory surrounded by, but not part, of a country
� headquarters of Roman Catholic church
� functions as an independent political entity
St. Peters, Basilica
� Testament to Renaissance (human level) and Baroque Ages (huge, over the top)
� Christ gave Peter the key to the kingdom of Heaven
o Designed as a key
� Built from stones taken from the Roman Forum
Switzerland
� Strategic St. Gotthard Pass
o Geopolitical power :whoever controlled pass controlled N-S trade (strategic military corridor)
o Economic power: collect tolls
Swiss
� German people, shared common culture and predisposed to work together for mutual benefit
� Formed cooperatives
� Road had to be kept open
� All Swiss had to agree on rules of the road
� A common will developed to defend their political and economic freedom
Swiss identity
� Not part of the EU
o 85% of the vote was against joining
� Pass always had to be open even in times of regional war
o origins of Swiss neutrality
o but had to be defended; Swiss became militarized
� Independent people willing to fight for their freedom
Switzerland does not have an army. Switzerland is an army!
� "porcupine principle"
o fire in line and hope that on one walks in the line
� all males have to serve in the military
� at age 20 training period of 21 weeks
� remain in military until 30
� reserve until age 56
� (proportionally) the largest military force in the world
� no Swiss army has been used outside since 1515
Eastern Europe
� Europe's largest region
� Contains the most countries
� Europe's largest state: Poland
� Europe's poorest country: Moldova
o No identity
E&W boundary very shaky
(East) Countries once under the soviet unions realm of influence
o part of the Warsaw pact
o Stalin, prime minister of SU; countries not allowed to receive funds from the Marshall Plan
EU membership
� 1900, none meet criteria for EU membership, now 10 are part of the EU
� Ukraine/Moldova- too poor and unstable to be part of the NATO and EU
� Belarus- still pro-Russia
Carpathian Mountains
� Semi circular around the Hungarian basin
o Mixing bowl of Europe
o Good agriculture land surrounded by mountains
o Includes: Hungarians, Romanians, Germans, Serbs, Croats, Gypsies
o Region of war
Carpathian Mountains
� Most complex physical geography in Europe
� Danube River: longest river in Europe
Balkanization
� Break up of a region into smaller and often hostile units
� Southern half of eastern Europe: the Balkan countries of the Balkan Peninsula
Underlying forces: Centrifugal forces
o Refer to forces that tend to divide a country
� Religious, linguistic, ethnic, or ideological differences
Underlying forces: Centripetal forces
o Forces that unite and bind a country together
� A strong natural culture, shared ideological objectives, and a common faith
Break up of the former Yugoslavia: Ethnic cleansing
� Forcible ouster of entire populations from their homelands by stronger powers bend on taking their territories
� Serbia most successful cleanser: 10,000 people killed and 50,000 injured
� Trying to get to nation state
Russia #1 problem
no access to water
Major geographic qualities of Russia
o Worlds largest territorial state
o Northernmost large and populous country in the world
o Former world empire and colonial power
o Comparatively small (140.6 mil) and concentrated population that is declining
size location and spatial relationships of Russia
o Longitudinal extent
� More than twice its max north-south extent and extends across 11 time zones
o Russia= 76.6% of the total territory of the former USSR (almost twice the size of the US)
o 80% above the Great Lakes
climate in the Russian realm
� Arctic- cold
� Majority in polar regions
Russia's climate: location� Affected by 3 environmental conditions
o 1. Latitudinal position
� far north
o 2. Continental position
� far away from moderating oceans
o 3. Location of major mountains
� few only the Urals running N-S
� nothing is blocking the cold north air
� permafrost
climate as a limiting element for Russia
� Agriculture
o Short growing seasons
o Drought prone
o Erosion (accelerated via snow melt)
� Settlement patterns and transportation
� Industry
o High energy consumption
o Specialized equipment and facilities- $$$
Population for Russia
� Low densities
� 232 million people in entire realm
� smaller pop than Indonesia
� reasonable high densities in the wooded steppe region around Moscow
Environment and society for Russia
� most ports are icebound
o ice covered ports
o Murmansk- only exception
� Far from the core
� Ice-free, but require nuclear powered icebreakers for trade to the E
o Russia's expansion
� Was a push for warm ports
o Oil, Timber, Gas
� No exports
No way to get it out
o Dependent on river systems
� The Volga
Warm water port
Russian Plain
o Marshy
� 2/3 was glaciated, low elevations, poor drainage
� 1/3 not glaciated, low hills
� core region: Moscow
Western Siberian Plain
o Extremely flat
o Poorly drained
o Mostly inhospitable
o Oil and gas reserves
Ural Mountains
� 2,000 miles long N-S
� no where are they an obstacle to trade to EW trasp
� variety of minerals
o industrial development
� poor farming
� west of the Urals- European Russia
� European border?
Lake Baykal
� Worlds oldest/deepest lake
� 20% of all freshwater in world, largest fresh water lake
� 25-50 million years old
� 2500 plant and animal species
o 75% unique to the lake
� problems:
o over fishing
o pollution
� pulp and paper mill sources
� now a world heritage site
SIberia
� fridge- forbidding land
� larger than the US
� dwindling pop
� larger rivers + low basins ? hydro electricity ? extract and refine local ores ? run the lumber mills ? exploit the Siberian forest
1st Russians
� Kievan Rus fell to Tarter Mongols (son of Genghis Khan)
� "Tarter Yoke"
� Russians believed Mongols were to blame for the subsequent misery of the Russian people
� Set back Russian cultural and economic development 100s of years
� Introduction to savagery and dictatorship- characteristics of Russian leaders
� Muscovy Russians- est Moscow- remote and defensible
o More forested, harder to penetrate
o Ivan the Terrible defeats Tater Mongols
� 1st Czar
Romanovs- Nation to empire= Peter the Great
o "founder of Modern Russia"
o founded St. Petersburg
� forward capital
� military installation and leading port
� out of the forest
� goals: open Russia to outside influences and relocate population
� Modern, European-Style state
Romanovs- Nation to empire= Catherine the Great
o Colonial power
o Annexed Crimean Peninsula, northern coast of Black sea
� Port
o Push to Indian Ocean but stopped
� Stopped by the British
o Lavish palaces
o Kodiak Island Alaska
� San Fran Bay 1812
� 1876- US purchased Alaska for 7.2 million dollars
Russificaiton- Expansion into the East
� push minority peoples eastward and replace them with Russians
� Result: large minority of Russians in former USSR republics
� Forts, pioneers, helped spread Russian Culture
� Taught them Russian
� Deluded strong ethnic groups
� Romans/Inca = roads
� Russia= Trans-Siberian Railraod-1904
o 1 million settlers to Siberia
� EMPIRE
Russian Expansion
� Unlike European colonization
o Largest territorially contiguous empire in the world
� Desire for more land and subjects
o Warm-water ports
� Expanded territory
o Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and Crimea
o Finland, Georgia, Armenia
o Central Asia
o The far east
Colonial Legacy
� Russian empire 18th century
o Vast space, yet culturally integration
� Imperial conquests due to lack of warm water ports
� Massive pop relocation (both Russians and non-Russians)
� Reality: remote from mainstream imposed isolation
Socialist revolution 1917
� Czar's family executed
� Bolsheviks (majority) vs. Mensheviks (minority)
� VI Lenin- Bolshevik leader
� EVERYTHING CHANGED
o 1918- capital moved from Petrograd (ST. P) to Moscow
� opposite of a forward capital move
� renamed Petrograd (ST.P) to Leningrad
Organization of the Soviet Union
� Over 100 ethnic groups
� 15 Soviet republics
� each named for one of the 15 largest ethnic groups
o opposite of Africa, grouped by ethnic culture
� Russian dominate republic
o � pop
Communism
� Form of political and economic organization characterized by collective ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange (economy)
Goals of Communism
o Classless society (egalitarian)
o Work according to ability
o Received according to need
Rapid Industrial transformation
� 27 years
o 1918: poor ? 1945 : 2nd most powerful country in world
� rapid industrial admired by 3rd world countries
� how?
o More natural resources than any other country in world
o Stalin's brutal dictatorship
Stalin's Communist priorities
� Speed industrialization
� Collectivize agriculture
� How: COMMAND ECONOMY
o Central planners in Moscow assigned
� Production of particular goods to particular places
o Often against basic economic geography
� Goods manufactured far away from raw materials
o Extremely expensive
o NO COMPETION/COMPLETION made managers complacent
o Workers less productive
Stalin and his projects
� Soviet Secret Police- KGB
� Slave labor
o Criminals, political prisoners, citizens
� Placed in Gulags- network of prisons
� 1.6 million casualties
� 53 separate camps and 423 labor colonies
Canal to connect Volga River to Moscow River
� Connected Moscow to the sea
� 60,000 died related to canal
� changed Volga river pattern
� erased villages
Ends justified the means
� Starvation: confiscated Ukraine's agriculture output, sealed borders
o 7 million deaths
� Stalin's lieutenants- showed peasants "who is the master here. It cost millions of lived, but the collective farm system is here to stay"
� Forcibly relocated entire ethnic groups, exterminated "uncooperative" or "disloyal" peoples
� 60 million lost their lived (Holocaust victims :11 million- 17 million)
Environmental Disasters in Russia
� Chernobyl: 1986 worst nuclear disaster
o Killed many through food and radiation
o 3000 sq km of dead trees
o 25% of Belarus uninhabitable
o many died from premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result: Russian publication
o villages abandoned
The Aral Sea
� Dropped 33 feet due to irrigation
� Monoculture: cotton
� Winters harsher/ longer
� Summers hotter/ shorter
� Little life
� 4th largest lake in 1960s
Troitsk smallest of 3 heavy industrial cities east of the Urals
-Satellite states
� A country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country
� Central and western European countries of the Warsaw pact during the Cold War
� Formally indep, but not according to the books
End of WWII started the Cold War
� Bipolar World
� US vs. SU
United States
� Gov: decentralized and liberal
� Protected by ocean
� Foremost capitalist power
� US monopoly on weapons, nuclear power
� NATO
USSR
� Gov: centralized and authoritarian
� Invaded twice in 20 cent by Germany
� Foremost Marxist/ Communist power
� Largest army in the world, occupying E Europe
� Warsaw pact
Geopolitics
� Geo= land politics=power
� Strategies related to acquiring power afflicting international relations between two or more countries
� Re-orientations in geopolitics and economics
� It only took months
o New regions
o New connections
o New alignments
Cold War
� split of Korea into N or S
Cold war legacies
� Russia sides with Cuba and Venezuela
� Position on Iran troubles the international community
� Opposes: EU and NATO designs
� US emerges
o Single greatest military power
o Arms supplier to the World
� Nuclear weapons world threat
o Planet pop 35 times over (enough weapons)
Breakup of the USSR
� Economic stagnation in the 1970s
o Failure to deliver consumer goods
o Hearing of consumerism elsewhere
� "Who's last in line? Are you last in line? What are they selling?
� "People would just stand in line hoping for anything...shoes, food, blankets.."
o regional inequalities
o economic drain- space/arms race
o inflexibility of Soviet planning and economy
Centrifugal forces: break up of SU
� Ethnic nationalism
� Worked against them
o SU fractured along the lines of the republics
o Lines of ethnic geography
� Between 1989 and 1991
o SU broke apart into 15 independent countries
Disappearance of buffer zones
� Between Germany and Russia
� Between Turkey and Russia
� Between China and Russia
� Land encirclement
� Largest country in the world
o Feels surrounded and basically landlocked
o No clear window on the world
o Xenophobic and paranoia of enemies
Russian fears
� EU and NATO added
� 10 countries bordering Russia
o significant Russian minorities
o border Belarus and Ukraine, countries Russia regards as parts of it sphere
� 9 former soviet satellites are part of NATO
� encroaching on it security perimeter
The New Realities
� no longer controlled
o farms of the Ukraine
o oil and natural gas reserves of central Asia
� corruption, bureaucracy, weak institutions (law)- difficult to start private company
o high tech products <1% of Russian exports
� 22 top state controlled companies last year
o 1,000 patents combined
o compared to IBM's 5,000 alone
Corruption
� Weaknesses= rise of crime and corruption
� Russian Mafia
o 40% of banks run by Mafia
o 1993 almost all bank owned by the Mafia
o 80% of businesses were paying protection (tribute) to Mafia
o 1400 murdered in Moscow in 1993
� only 24% of households in Russia have bank accounts
Gov corruption
� the world's most corrupt major economy ?
� "corruption has penetrated all echelons of Russian power"
� PUTIN
o 2 consecutive terms, president
o chief of staff, Medevdev to President
o Appoint Putin new Prime Minister
� "setback for democracy" 2010
� just announced 2012 run
� Putin/State controlled
o TV state controlled
o Demonstrations banned or tightly restricted
o Georgia and Ukraine are worried
� Putin "temporary and irritating
Russia's prospects
� Economic
o Mineral resources (worlds largest exporter of oil)
o 35% of worlds natural gas reserves
� Regional
o Disparity between the core and periphery
� Moscow- city international business center ? the largest construction spot in Europe and a symbol of Russia's growing economic might
Russia's core
� Central industrial area
� The Volga/Moscow region
� Ural mountains
Demographic disaster : by 2050 only 100 million
� Rapid decline since 1990
� Uncertainty causing fewer children
o Abortion widespread
o Skyrocketing death rate
o Males- alcoholism
� Heavy smoking
� Suicide
� Accidents
� Murder
9 x more likely to dies of violent death than European
Putin's cash for babies campaign
� Incentives for children
o $100 for 2nd child
o $1000 education and mortgage
o $10,000 worth of vouchers
o not very persuasive though
� regional differences
o slow: Belarus and Russia
o high growth: Central Asia and Trans-Caucasus
� "Brain Drain
Rising power of Islam
� mosques closed under communism
� now flourishing
� new Muslim countries
� newly enlarged Middle East
� Pipeline politics
o oil and natural gas routes from the Caspian Sea region
Far East
� Taken from China
� Majority pop is Chinese ? 100,000 illegally
o Chinese workers- economically lagging North East
o North Korea is disarray, refugees crossing
o Dissatisfaction with Moscow
Chechnya
� Chechnya separatism (1990s)- causes
o History of resistance to Russian invasion 2 centuries ago
o Internment during WWII for alleged collaboration with Nazi Germans
o Entire Chechen pop exiled to Central Asia, high loss of life
0 Muslim rebels resisted Russian rule after fall of USSR
� Minority group (size of Connecticut) threatened largest territorial state in the world
Chechnya: terrorist campaign
o Moscow 230 deaths
o 700 captives theater, 130 deaths
o school in Beslan, 350 deaths (1/2 were school children)
Chechnya: Putin gave Russian army free reign
o Have gained privileged semi-independent status in Russia
o Devolution
Race relations
� Xenophobia- fear of foreigners
� Chechnya war and terrorism
� Rising street crime and immigration
� Locals assault on foreigners
o Work, ethnicity, clothing, cultural traits
o Urban tensions
Russian interests in Transcaucasia
1. Fate of Russian minorities
2. Routing of commodity exports from neighboring countries via pathways that avoid Russian territory
3. Prospect that the demographic vacuum pull unwanted immigration form neighboring states
Armenia
� Favor Russia
� Given independence in 1991
� Many feel without Soviet intervention would have shared fate of the Kurds
o Stateless
Exclave: separated territory surrounded by another state
� Armenia - Azerbaijan
o 150,000 Armenians in exclave
o Armenian troops entered Azerbaijan, gained control
o International community has not recognized Armenian's occupation
o Officially territory remains apart of Azerbaijan
o 2011 still not resolved
Transcaucasia
� Former Soviet republics
� Now separate countries
o Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan