RUSSIAN WEIGHT AND MASS
VAST RANGE OF CLIMATE & TERRITORY. The first impression which Russia makes on the foreign visitor is its sheer bigness. Between a sixth and a seventh of the land surface of the globe is included within Soviet frontiers, says Mr .William Henry Chamberlin, formerly an American correspondent in Moscow, writing in the “New York Times.” Making proper allowance for the immense tracts of thinly populated Arctic waste of North Russia and Siberia and for the vast deserts of Central Asia, this still leaves an enormous realm with the widest varieties of climate, temperature and peoples living in all stages of civilisation, from Eskimo aborigines to scholars and. scientists of world reputation. In the Caucasus and Central Asia there are superb mountain ranges and peaks far exceeding Mount Blanc in height. But a typical Russian landscape emphasises the vast extent of the country. It carries a Suggestion of boundlessness, of infinity stretching over plain or rolling steppe as far as the eye can reach. When the Soviet Government eleven years ago invited newspaper men to attend the official opening of a new railway connecting Turkestan and Siberia it was necessary for them to travel six days to reach the scene of the ceremony. With this impression of size one also gets an impression of mass, for Russia, has the largest predominantly white population included in any single administrative unit, with about 170,000,000 inhabitants, excluding the newly annexed regions which are now the theatre of hostilities. All of Russian history has been largely one of expansion through the pressure of weight and mass sometimes against the resistance of peoples with closer ties to Western civilisation, such as the Swedes and Poles. Russia has sustained many military defeats, but since the Tartars overran' and subjugated the country in the 13th century no conqueror could ever impose his will on this enormous agglomeration of peoples and territory.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1941, Page 7
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316RUSSIAN WEIGHT AND MASS Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1941, Page 7
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