Amuria

Amuria (Russian: Амурия, Amuriya), officially the Amurian Republic (Russian: Амурская Республика, Amurskaya Respublika), is a country in far-eastern Asia, it borders Russia to the north and west, China to the south, and just north of Japan cut by the La Pérouse Strait.

Etymology
The name of Amuria is derived directly from the Amur River, the primary geographical feature of Amuria. The name of the Amur River itself is probably derived from the Asiatic languages’ word for rivers, usually refered to simply as “water”: mul (물) in Korean, muren (mörön) in Mongolian, and mizu (みず) in Japanese. Amur may also have been derived from a modifier emphasizing the Amur River as a “Big Water”.

Early Russian explorers of the Amurian region likely thus named the Amur River after the name given to it by local populations. The name stuck, and the eventual population growth led to the region being known as the Amurian Frontier, (Russian: Амурский Край, Amurskiy Krai). Before the late 1800s, however, the region was primarily known, vaguely, as the Far East, coupled with Siberia (Russian: Дальный Восток, Dalnyy Vostok), until the region of Amuria increased in prominence and replaced the vague term.

Russian Colonization
While historically a region of Manchuria, Amuria was annexed into the Russian Empire from the Qing Empire after the Treaty of Peking in 1860. From 1869 to 1882, Russian settlements were established throughout the Primorye region of Amuria, with the most prominent being Vladivostok. Russian control brought increased production in the region, particularly in the coal and timber industry, but also the aquaculture industry.

In the years before the outbreak of World War I, Amuria was developed, particularly with support from Tsar Nicholas II, who had visited earlier in 1891. Nicholas saw Amuria as a potential area to tie down the rest of Siberia to ensure better administration and to better project power over the Pacific. He instituted a policy in 1908 that allowed for new settlers to obtain a free plot of 100 acres, similar to the Homestead Act of 1860 in the United States of America. With time, a considerable number of Russians and Ukrainians migrated to the far east to settle the frontier. In the period between 1908 and 1914, hundreds of thousands of settlers settled in the region as the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed. Vladivostok quickly became viewed as Russia's "Capital of the East". The new migrants sought opportunity for wealth and freedom, and thus established a new identity in the region.

As an additional consequence of distance from the Imperial capital of St. Petersburg and the absence of the freed-serf mentality that limited growth in the western quarter of the Empire, the Far East saw a higher amount of growth compared to the west. Vladivostok became a new industrial center and the largest city east of the Ural mountains.

Early 20th Century
During the 1905 Revolution, the regions of Amuria declared a temporary worker’s republic known as the Chita Republic. This was the first predecessor to the Amurian state. However, this state, which was established by revolutionaries exiled to the Far East and saw little support from the locals at the time, was short lived and was disbanded shortly thereafter, and the revolutionaries were executed or imprisoned. Nevertheless, the far eastern governorates of the Russian Empire began resenting rule by the imperials in St. Petersburg and, with a growing new identity, considered themselves different from the western Russians.

By the time of the Russian Civil War, the Amurians took advantage of the ensuing chaos and immediately sought independence, establishing the Far Eastern People’s Republic. With its capital in Vladivostok, this state had a much larger area than the Chita Republic, reaching almost to Lake Baikal in Russia. However, after the Japanese Empire and the United States of America intervened in favor of the White movement in the civil war, Vladivostok fell to the allied forces and was occupied for some time. Nevertheless, Amurian nationals continued to employ guerrilla tactics to try and sabotage their efforts.

In 1921, the Bolsheviks began taking back Siberia and liberated Vladivostok by 1922. With the end of the civil war, the Council of Vladivostok agreed to join the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Far Eastern Soviet Socialist Republic became a constituent republic of the USSR. While its economy was devastated after the civil war and Lenin's policy of War Communism, the New Economic Policy, instituted in 1922, saw exponential growth in agricultural production in Amuria. The cities also saw economic growth with the rise of the NEPmen. The policy was rescinded by Joseph Stalin in 1938 with the introduction of his Five Year Plan, which saw forced collectivization of agriculture and rapid industrialization in the cities. Due to resentment against Stalin's policies, many NEPmen were spared of the same fate many experienced in the west and so called "kulaks", wealthy middle class farmers, managed to flee into the cities. Many kulaks and NEPmen eventually were punished in the purges of the late 1930s, but much of the amassed wealth lingered until the end of World War II with the 1946 Famine.

In 1936, Joseph Stalin reorganized the FESSR as the Amurian Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), and redrew the borders to match Amuria’s modern day borders. In the years before the Second World War, the region saw great economic growth and urbanization, finally reaching pre-Civil War levels by 1925, then rebound in 1936 after Stalin's reforms. By 1941, the economy of Amuria was mainly driven by heavy industry, with Vladivostok becoming a major hub for military goods and the automotive production, mostly developed to supply the Soviet military in its engagement against Nazi Germany. In the final months of World War II, Amuria was used as the staging point for the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria and later of Korea. This blow led to the surrender of Japan.

Post War Soviet Amuria
At the Treaty of San Francisco, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands were officially ceded to the USSR. Stalin granted this territory to the ASSR to assist in the administration of the newly-conquered areas. During the 1970s, many scientific institutes and academies were established in Vladivostok, increasing its prominence in Soviet society. Many new factories and districts also marked the expansion of the city's industry toward the final decades of the USSR. The most significant being the Kurgenev aircraft factory in Komsomolsk-na-Amure, which began producing military and civilian aircraft, mainly for use as Sukhoi aircraft in the Far East.

During the chaos amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many young students and prominent politicians advocated for the independence of Amuria. Many believed that the rulers in Moscow were disillusioned with their own problems to pay enough attention to the Far East, and home-rule was the better alternative. Additionally, ideological differences in the people of Amuria, exhibited since before the Russian Revolution, began seeing a resurgence as people looked into their pasts for inspiration. On October 16, 1991, with the fall of the Soviet Union, Amuria declared independence as a democratic state.

Post Soviet Era
After independence, the economy rapidly fell as the nation failed to successfully transition from a planned market to a free one, similar to the fates of many other former Soviet countries. Tensions were particularly high in 1992 as the Russian Pacific Fleet was alienated from the Russian Federation. In September 1992, Amuria's first President, Yuri Kalichkin, leased several docks to Russia to use as a base for the fleet, as Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka was not suited enough to host the fleet due to its colder climate. This act normalized relations with Russia and Kalichkin managed to avoid conflict. Nevertheless, Kalichkin's policy of appeasing to Western capitalism did not help the state of the Amurian economy, and he lost the election of 1996 to Yuri Amurin, an early representative of Amurian independence.

Amurin, who stylized himself after the Amur River, proved to be an effective reformer and statesman. He normalized relations with other east Asian nations and began conducting trade with many in exchange for increased investment. His reforms in 1998 saw major heavy industries and natural resource extraction nationalized under government control. This dulled the power of Amurian oligarchs that emerged under Kalichkin, but also cooled relations with Russia's Boris Yeltsin. Amurin also instituted a liberalization of light industry and agricultural production, lowering taxes in both sectors and decreasing interest rates. This saw quick recovery in both. By 2004, Amuria stopped importing food from other countries. During the same period, Amuria saw growth in its service sector and allowed American companies to open stores in Amurian cities.

Amurin's third term saw major change in Amuria's foreign policy, bringing it closer to neighboring Sansheng, increasing investment in Amuria's decaying infrastructure and heavy industry. Amurin was soon able to free up the government's budget, which he used to improve the nation's educational system and urban restoration. Many Amurian microregions, built during the time of Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union, were demolished or renovated by construction companies encouraged by government subsidies. This changed the atmosphere of the Amurian urbanscape, and Amurin's goal of renovating Amuria to fit among both the Western framework and the east Asian prosperity came into fruition. In 2008, he refused to run for a fourth term.

Amurin's successor, Aleksandr Yurchenko, instituted gradual privatization of heavy industries and continued Amurin's policies of Amurian renovation. By 2012, Amuria's gross domestic product was on par with Russia's, highlighting Amuria's success story. Yurchenko also tightened relations with the Russian Federation and, in 2015, the Republic became a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. Under his term, the Trans Siberian Railway also saw significant upgrades, funded by Russia and many Asian nations, to fascilitate Amuria's position as the link between both the Russian and Asian markets.

Vadim Gorkin, elected in 2016, continued the precedent of his predecessors on economic policy, but he also quickly relieved political pressure on the media and press. Gorkin is also seeking Amurian integration into the greater global market, joining the Alliance of Independent Nations and its Alliance Economic Integration Treaty in 2017 and seeking even closer economic relations with its Asian partners.

Geography
Located in the former far eastern territory of the former Russian Empire and the later Soviet Union, Amuria is confined by the Stanovoy Range in the northwest, the Amurian Sea to the east, the Sea of Japan to the south, and the Amur and Ussuri rivers. At 1,441,300 square kilometers, Amuria is one of the largest nations in the Alliance of Independent Nations.

Topography
Mostly mountainous and hilly, 80% of Amuria remains forested. The warmer, mixed-forest south of Amuria is more developed and populated. The south of Amuria has a landscape dominated by many valleys and rivers carving beautiful scenes that have recently begun attracting many tourists from the world over. The largest of these rivers, the Ussuri River, along with the Khanka Lake, form a flat plain that fosters a denser population and arable land. North of the Amur River, the landscape becomes rougher and less populated. Around 75% of Amuria's hydroelectric power comes from the fast-running rivers of the north, most of which are tributaries of the Amur River. To the east, the islands of Sakhalin and the Kurils form a natural barrier against the Pacific Ocean and themselves are very hilly and mountainous.



Fauna and Flora
The geographic location and variation of Amuria accounts for the variety of its flora. The south of Amuria has not been subjected to the ice cover that the north was subjected to, results in a wealth of diversity in plant species. In the south alone, there are more than two thousand species of higher plants, of which about 250 species of trees, bushes and ligneous lianas. Flora of mosses and lichens is also very diverse. As part of the coastal flora, there are many valuable medicinal, technical and food plants, many relict and endemic species, many of which are listed as rare and endangered.There are mountainous tundra areas, conifers and coniferous-deciduous forests, and forest-steppe, which is sometimes called the Far Eastern Prairie, where many ancient plant species have been preserved, including ferns, lotus, and the Chosenia willow. The fauna of Amuria is also diverse. The Ussuri black bear, Amur tiger, Amur leopard, lynx, wild boar, Manchurian deer, and many other species can be found throughout Amuria, especially in the warmer south. Among 690 species of birds inhabiting the territory of the former USSR, 350 are found in Amuria. Rich fisheries of salmon, Hucho taimen, lenok and marine fisheries of crab, pollock and other species make the aquatic and maritime environment a valuable resource and export for Amuria. However, this rich diversity of wildlife is threatened by poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. The Wildlife Conservation Service and National Park Service of Amuria have taken active measures to prevent further deterioration of the diversity of life in Amuria.

Climate
The climate of Amuria, due to its large area, is highly diverse. In the north, subarctic, taiga, and tundra dominate the region. Towards the south, the cold climate gradually transforms into more mild temperate, oceanic climates. However, even in the south, seasonal temperature differences can be very extreme. In Vladivostok, the temperature difference between the winter and summer varies between −8.1 (17.4) and 23.2 (73.8) degrees, respectively. Such differences made it difficult for early settlers in Amuria.