4 ms·

I am from Siberia (Omsk, Russia). While some of the things in this article are true (distrust for Moscow, openness and straightforwardness, feeling separated fr

I am from Siberia (Omsk, Russia). While some of the things in this article are true (distrust for Moscow, openness and straightforwardness, feeling separated from the rest of Russia), I want to note that there always were hot summers in Siberia. While the current heatwave is beating records, when you see +38C in Verkhoyansk, you should keep in mind that there weren’t Arctic temperatures in summer, +35C happened quite routinely there). The changes are not enough to form “a new identity”... I think. Also, one thing that Russian powers-that-be absolutely cannot stand is separatism. We always joked that “it’s time to ditch Moscow” and the like, but any real attempt will be met by crushing force, nobody has any illusions about that.

082349872349872 6y ago
Looks like the last time separatism was tried were the Whites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_All-Russian_Government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_All-Russian_Govern... I've seen music videos from Perm and Novosibirsk, can you recommend any from Omsk?
the_gipsy 6y ago
Yea, I remember watching an older (80s?) documentary about siberia, and distinctly remember mentioning hot, but short, summers with mosquito plagues.
- mc32 6y ago
  Apparently bloodsucking mosquitoes and biting flies.
- non-entity 6y ago
  Not sure if it was Siberia exactly, but I was watching a clip from some nature documentary in a generally cold-and-north region and seeing massive swarms of mosquitoes weakening animals. I've lived in the southeast US my whole life and I thought mosquitoes were bad here in thesummer.
  - rpeden 6y ago
    Could it have been black flies instead of mosquitoes? Blood is their favorite meal and they're known to swarm humans and animals alike in large numbers: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Fly_Attack_on_theDubawnt_River_Nunavut.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Fly_Attack_o... Mosquitoes at least have the courtesy the use a proboscis to remove your blood. Black flies just rip off a chunk of flesh to get what they're after, which I believe is reason that large swarms of them can seriously injure animals.
    - trhway 6y ago
      yep, from personal experience :), a 3cm long black fly makes about a 3mm long cut, and it seems it injects something like anticoagulant into the cut, and it can bite even through clothes like jeans where the cloth touches skin, and yes, they come in droves. Wrt. separatism - not in next 50-100 years for any locally grown separatism. Too small number of people on that gigantic territory of too diverse ethnic makeup. With climate change the population will grow and some places becoming nice will get higher population of higher density with some shared identity. That wouldn't be Russians - Russian demographics is falling. No other ethnicity there also have numbers and demographic trend to accomplish it in the observable future. So, most probably it will be Chinese immigrants in the Far East. There are already a lot of them there, and the numbers are growing fast - again nobody else is able to populate and develop those territories with needed intensity, so Russia lets, as there is not much choice really, them come to fill the vacuum so to say. China also considers some of those territories historically theirs. That means that China wouldn't let anybody else to bite that piece. In some decades there will be a period of time when Russia gets into deep crisis (like say change of President because of Putin dying in 2050? :) and that's when the even more powerful China will make the move. A Far East version of Crimea. In a modern Russian fantasy novel (by Pelevin?) about near future the Chinese hieroglyphs naming Russia are directly translated as "temporary administration of the northern gas pipelines" :)
- loosetypes 6y ago
  The tail end of this video on the “coldest town in the world”, https://youtu.be/l1noUh2NrLI https://youtu.be/l1noUh2NrLI, mentions both factors and that they combine to be more unpleasant than the cold.
- mlinksva 6y ago
  Mosquitoes also feature strongly in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_People:_A_Year_in_the_Taiga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_People:_A_Year_in_the_Ta... (2010)
  - virgulino 6y ago
    I highly recommend the original 4-part film, not the old hippie moralist fairy tail that is the Herzog version - speaking as an Herzog fan! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcHbZZPce_ZMUuYr5u6sxy3gsxLYLKiPv https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcHbZZPce_ZMUuYr5u6sx...
    - shitgoose 6y ago
      Great series! Thanks!
  - the_gipsy 6y ago
    Yes this must've been it - I don't know why I thought it to be much older.
woodandsteel 6y ago
Whether or not the heat record is as extreme as presented, the fact is the arctic is getting warmer twice as fast as the world as a whole. And that is leading to huge changes, most notably permafrost melting, which has all sorts of consequences like destroying infrastructure on a massive scale.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
It's the same in the Canadian north (very similar bioregion); The continental climate is extreme. Hot summers, cold winters. I do get the sense though that the Siberian winter was traditionally more 'stable' than what we get in North America. Our winters can cycle from extreme cold to fairly warm from day to day. A lot of plants with their genetic origins in Siberia don't do well in the Canadian north because they are not adapted for the swings, despite being hardy for extreme temperature lows. (Example: Vitis amurensis, the wild 'Amur' grape will break dormancy quickly and so gets fooled by the many false springs we get here. Our native hardy northern grape, Vitis riparia requires more coaxing to come out of dormancy) In any case, aggregate temperatures are going up. The number of extreme days increases. It's not that we didn't have hot days before, it's the frequency of it that's worrisome, from the POV of permafrost retention, forest fires, etc.
shitgoose 6y ago
I am originally from Moscow and I always had great respect for Siberia and its people. I just watched "Happy People" series referenced below. Amazing! "Ditch Moscow" - "Moscow" it is not a geography:) There are plenty of people in Moscow (and the rest of the country) just like you. And I am sure you have shitheads is Siberia too. I wish we could drain the swamp, wherever it is.

082349872349872 6y ago

Looks like the last time separatism was tried were the Whites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_All-Russian_Government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_All-Russian_Govern... I've seen music videos from Perm and Novosibirsk, can you recommend any from Omsk?

the_gipsy 6y ago

Yea, I remember watching an older (80s?) documentary about siberia, and distinctly remember mentioning hot, but short, summers with mosquito plagues.

mc32 6y ago
Apparently bloodsucking mosquitoes and biting flies.
non-entity 6y ago
Not sure if it was Siberia exactly, but I was watching a clip from some nature documentary in a generally cold-and-north region and seeing massive swarms of mosquitoes weakening animals. I've lived in the southeast US my whole life and I thought mosquitoes were bad here in thesummer.
- rpeden 6y ago
  Could it have been black flies instead of mosquitoes? Blood is their favorite meal and they're known to swarm humans and animals alike in large numbers: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Fly_Attack_on_theDubawnt_River_Nunavut.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Fly_Attack_o... Mosquitoes at least have the courtesy the use a proboscis to remove your blood. Black flies just rip off a chunk of flesh to get what they're after, which I believe is reason that large swarms of them can seriously injure animals.
  - trhway 6y ago
    yep, from personal experience :), a 3cm long black fly makes about a 3mm long cut, and it seems it injects something like anticoagulant into the cut, and it can bite even through clothes like jeans where the cloth touches skin, and yes, they come in droves. Wrt. separatism - not in next 50-100 years for any locally grown separatism. Too small number of people on that gigantic territory of too diverse ethnic makeup. With climate change the population will grow and some places becoming nice will get higher population of higher density with some shared identity. That wouldn't be Russians - Russian demographics is falling. No other ethnicity there also have numbers and demographic trend to accomplish it in the observable future. So, most probably it will be Chinese immigrants in the Far East. There are already a lot of them there, and the numbers are growing fast - again nobody else is able to populate and develop those territories with needed intensity, so Russia lets, as there is not much choice really, them come to fill the vacuum so to say. China also considers some of those territories historically theirs. That means that China wouldn't let anybody else to bite that piece. In some decades there will be a period of time when Russia gets into deep crisis (like say change of President because of Putin dying in 2050? :) and that's when the even more powerful China will make the move. A Far East version of Crimea. In a modern Russian fantasy novel (by Pelevin?) about near future the Chinese hieroglyphs naming Russia are directly translated as "temporary administration of the northern gas pipelines" :)
loosetypes 6y ago
The tail end of this video on the “coldest town in the world”, https://youtu.be/l1noUh2NrLI https://youtu.be/l1noUh2NrLI, mentions both factors and that they combine to be more unpleasant than the cold.
mlinksva 6y ago
Mosquitoes also feature strongly in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_People:_A_Year_in_the_Taiga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_People:_A_Year_in_the_Ta... (2010)
- virgulino 6y ago
  I highly recommend the original 4-part film, not the old hippie moralist fairy tail that is the Herzog version - speaking as an Herzog fan! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcHbZZPce_ZMUuYr5u6sxy3gsxLYLKiPv https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcHbZZPce_ZMUuYr5u6sx...
  - shitgoose 6y ago
    Great series! Thanks!
- the_gipsy 6y ago
  Yes this must've been it - I don't know why I thought it to be much older.

woodandsteel 6y ago

Whether or not the heat record is as extreme as presented, the fact is the arctic is getting warmer twice as fast as the world as a whole. And that is leading to huge changes, most notably permafrost melting, which has all sorts of consequences like destroying infrastructure on a massive scale.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

It's the same in the Canadian north (very similar bioregion); The continental climate is extreme. Hot summers, cold winters. I do get the sense though that the Siberian winter was traditionally more 'stable' than what we get in North America. Our winters can cycle from extreme cold to fairly warm from day to day. A lot of plants with their genetic origins in Siberia don't do well in the Canadian north because they are not adapted for the swings, despite being hardy for extreme temperature lows. (Example: Vitis amurensis, the wild 'Amur' grape will break dormancy quickly and so gets fooled by the many false springs we get here. Our native hardy northern grape, Vitis riparia requires more coaxing to come out of dormancy) In any case, aggregate temperatures are going up. The number of extreme days increases. It's not that we didn't have hot days before, it's the frequency of it that's worrisome, from the POV of permafrost retention, forest fires, etc.

shitgoose 6y ago

I am originally from Moscow and I always had great respect for Siberia and its people. I just watched "Happy People" series referenced below. Amazing! "Ditch Moscow" - "Moscow" it is not a geography:) There are plenty of people in Moscow (and the rest of the country) just like you. And I am sure you have shitheads is Siberia too. I wish we could drain the swamp, wherever it is.