Fossil ivory trade was significant for Siberians for centuries, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory#Alternative_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor

Fossil ivory trade was significant for Siberians for centuries, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory#Alternative_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory#Alternative_sources I think you underestimates the difficulty to travel across Siberia: almost no roads, no trains, few and scattered inhabitants, thousands of km of steppe in all directions... Huge parts of the country are basically only accessible by helicopter (which is extremely expensive). In fact they even used an heavy helicopter to bring back a whole mammoth to Moscow a few years ago.