Chukotka
"The mountains fall to the sea, the seacoast is pounded by the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, deep valleys cut through the inland plateaus, and the lakes, streams and marsh lowlands bring clean, unpolluted water to the seas. In the 21st century, the landscape remains unchanged, meeting the modern traveler with the same views as met the first human inhabitants of the Chukotka peninsula upwards up 10.000 years ago, or the first Russian explorers in the 17th century."
Chukotka or Chukot Autonomous Okrug was established on 10 December 1930 and has been an independent subject of the Russian Federation since 17 June 1992.
Chukotka is situated on the remotest north-eastern end of Eurasia, running like a wedge in between two oceans: the Pacific and the Arctic. The East-Siberian, the Chukchee and the Bering Seas wash it.
Considered the most remote region of the Arctic, Chukotka is the also the least developed and has experienced some of the greatest poverty. But vast land roughly the size of Texas, Chukotka is one of our planet's most spectacular ecological regions.
With only isolated industrial pockets and no roads connecting two communities, vast areas of wilderness have been left intact, providing habitat for more than 70 percent of the rare subspecies that occur nowhere else on earth. Ranging from Arctic tundra to dense forests, this wilderness supports a unique mixture of subtropical and northern plant and animal species, which in turn supports its native people, culture, and traditions.
The Yu'pik and the maritime Chukchi hunt and fish along the shores of the ocean. The Reindeer Chukchi live inland, and survive as reindeer farmers with large herds of the animal grazing on the tundra.
