Eastern Europe
The East European Plain is one of Eurasia’s largest natural regions, about 4 million km² in area. It lies in eastern Europe and stretches from tundra in the north to desert in the south-east. Geologically it sits on the ancient, stable East European Platform, covered with marine and continental deposits. Its minerals are rich: iron ore at Kryvyi Rih and the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, coal in the Donetsk and Pechora basins, oil in the Volga–Urals and Pechora regions, and oil shale in the Baltic area. The relief has uplands (Valdai, Central Russian), ridges and lowlands. The climate is shaped by warm moist Atlantic air and cold Arctic air; continentality grows from west to east and from north to south. Winters are mild in the west (–6…–8 °C) and cold in the east (–10…–20 °C); summers are cool in most places (+18…+22 °C) and hot in the south-east (+25…+29 °C); rainfall falls from 800 to 600 mm from west to east, and is lowest (about 200 mm) in the Caspian lowland. The rivers are plentiful: the Pechora, Mezen and Northern Dvina flow north; the Volga, Dnieper and Ural flow south. There are many lakes in the north-west. Natural zones change from north to south: tundra, forest-tundra, taiga, mixed forest, broad-leaved forest, forest-steppe, steppe, semi-desert and desert.
“River routes”: find the Pechora, Northern Dvina, Volga, Dnieper and Ural on the map and say into which sea each flows.