Russia's Vastness

Russia

Where to begin? Russia is a vast country, larger than Canada. In fact Russia's territory is roughly 2/3 larger than Canada--17 million square km vs 10 million. Depending on one's viewpoint these two gigantic countries are followed either by the United States or by China. If one just looks at landmass it is China that follows Canada; if one counts coastal and territorial waters, it is the United States--both claim roughly 9.5 square km of landmass. So much for Wikipedia wisdom.

So, people measure their distances in a manner that make sense to them. In Russia, people measure distance in hours spent on the train, in the U.S. in hours spent in a car. So, if one is in Saratov and asks how far St. Petersburg is, the answer would be "23 hours on the train". This would count as relatively short.  Moscow a mere 15 hours. Vladivostok, the furthest city in Russia's East is about 24x5 hours = 120 hours away from Saratov. Obviously, this would count as long.

European Russia

The European portion of Russia is all the territory located to the west of the Ural mountains. While all of Europe w/out Russia counts roughly 6 million square miles as its territory, Russia has a little less than 4 million square miles making 2/5th of Europe Russia.

I am in Saratov, 15 train hours away from Moscow or 90 minutes by plane due south, then a little east. As can be seen in the map below the city of Saratov is located on the Volga River in the southern, very fertile plain. The Volga River--often described as the 'Russia's soul'. None of the Russians that I talked to disputed that, so there must be some truth to that.

Watershed of the Volga River. Notice the Volga ends in the Caspian Sea but at Volgograd there is a canal that connects the river with the Don River which flows into the Sea of Asov and ultimately into the Black Sea.