Why go
The East European Plain can appear uniform on a map, yet its plant communities change substantially from north to south. Distinguishing taiga from mixed woodland and steppe gives useful context for Russian landscapes, regional descriptions and the strong relationship between climate and vegetation.
The full story
On the East European Plain, the northern tundra gives way to coniferous forest, then mixed and broad-leaved woodland. Farther south lie the grasslands known as steppe and the semi-desert near the Caspian Sea. Siberia follows a comparable broad sequence, although taiga, or northern coniferous forest, dominates much of its landscape. Tundra is a low-growing environment shaped by cold and frozen ground. Mosses, lichens, dwarf willows and shrubs grow close to the surface. Seasonal thaw can leave water trapped in lakes, ponds and marshes rather than draining freely. The mixed forest belt includes oak, spruce, birch, aspen, maple and pine. Towards the Urals it narrows, while birch and aspen woodland forms a transition between taiga and wooded steppe farther east. Agriculture has cleared substantial areas of forest in European Russia. The apparent continuity of the plains therefore contains both natural vegetation changes and landscapes altered by people.