Native open spaces. What is a steppe?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

The widest flat expanses, a wild field overgrown with flowers and herbs - that's what the steppe is. These are hectares of endless land, breathing freedom, calcined by the summer heat, blown by all winds or frozen by the winter cold. Indented by riverbeds, free, like the soul of a Russian person, the wild steppe is sung in folk songs. She was admired, loved, cherished. In the modern world, there are few open spaces undeveloped by man. The steppes were plowed and sown with wheat, oats, and rye. The same fields that were left untouched or were abandoned and re-covered with grass continue to fascinate at any time of the year.

What is the steppe in the geography of Russia? These are endless expanses that stretch from the westernmost Russian outskirts to Siberia, covering the territory to the Black, Azov Seas and the Caspian Sea and reaching the Caucasus Mountains. Such large rivers as the Volga, Don, Ob and Dnieper carry their waters through the steppe strip. This is somewhere flat, somewhere slightly hilly, on which sometimes, here and there, there are small islands of trees.

The nature of the steppes is diverse. The steppe in spring is a huge territory covered with rich colors. A riot of colors, a real artist's palette - that's what the steppe is at this time of the year. Islands of bright red and yellow tulips coexist with purple violets, blue and lilac hyacinths, golden sparks of adonis, and all this in the midst of bright green grass. A little later, already at the beginning of June, this spring variety of colors gives way to an equally bright palette of summer colors - the expanses are covered with blue forget-me-nots, red poppies, irises, yellow tansy, wild peonies. July is the time for purple sage to bloom. In the second half of summer, the steppe turns white, covered with glades of daisies, clover and meadowsweet. In the hot season, when the sun rises high and dries the earth, and the rains are rare, the steppe looks like an endless scorched canvas. Here and there, among the faded stalks of cereal grasses, gray threads of feather grass flutter. When the hot sun finally “works” over the endless expanses, tumbleweed balls will roll along the faded, scorched, cracked earth. These are various plants linked together, forming a ball and moving across the expanse, spreading their seeds.

The fauna of the steppes is also rich. For him, what is the steppe? These are harsh living conditions to which the inhabitants of the vast expanses are forced to adapt. A large number of rodents hunt in the steppe: ground squirrels, mole rats, jerboas, marmots, and some species of hares. All of them build their holes with numerous passages underground. Amongungulates there are various types of gazelles, antelopes. Not rare in the steppes and snakes. Birds of prey are represented by the steppe eagles, the kestrel, and the harrier. In addition, bustards and various species of small birds such as larks live in the steppes. Live in the steppes and predatory animals. Steppe wolves and jackals become especially dangerous in winter. When the steppe was still little mastered, there were frequent cases when wolf packs attacked a person as well.

The steppe is also found on other continents. However, there it has other names. In America it's prairie, in Africa it's savannah.