The Yudoma-Maya Highlands ( rus, Юдомо-Майское нагорье, r=Yudomo-Maiskoye Nagorye; sah, Юдома-Маайа хаптал хайалаах сиринэн ) are a mountainous area in the
Sakha Republic
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far Eas ...
and
Khabarovsk Krai
Khabarovsk Krai ( rus, Хабаровский край, r=Khabarovsky kray, p=xɐˈbarəfskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Russian Far East and is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District ...
,
Far Eastern Federal District
The Far Eastern Federal District (russian: Дальневосто́чный федера́льный о́круг, ''Dalnevostochny federalny okrug'') is the largest of the federal districts of Russia, eight federal districts of Russia but t ...
, Russia.
The settlement of Allakh-Yun is located in the area of the highlands on the right bank of the
Allakh-Yun River
The Allakh-Yun (russian: Аллах-Юнь, sah, Ааллаах Үүн, ''Aallaax Üün'') is a river in Sakha Republic and Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is a right tributary of the Aldan. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .
Geography
The ...
.
History
The area of the Yudoma-Maya and the
Aldan Aldan may refer to:
;People
*Gille Aldan, the first bishop of Galloway, Scotland
* Andrey Aldan-Semenov (1908–1985), Russian writer
*Duke Aldan, a fictional character in '' Langrisser IV'' video game
;Places
*Aldan, Russia, a town in the Sakha R ...
highlands, between the basins of the
Aldan River
The Aldan (russian: Алдан) is the second-longest, right tributary of the Lena in the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia.Yudoma
The Yudoma (russian: Юдома) is a river in eastern Siberia in the Yudoma-Maya Highlands near the Okhotsk Coast. It joins the Maya which joins the Aldan which joins the Lena which flows into the Arctic Ocean. Its northern headwaters are in t ...
, was uncharted territory well until the 1930s. It was first surveyed in 1934 by geologist
Yuri Bilibin
Yuri Alexandrovich Bilibin (russian: Ю́рий Алекса́ндрович Били́бин; 19 May 1901 in Rostov – 4 May 1952 in Leningrad) was a Soviet geologist.
Biography
Between 1919-1921 he served in the Red Army. In 1926 he graduated f ...
(1901—1952) together with mining engineer Evgeny Bobin (1897—1941) in the course of an expedition sent by the government of the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
. Bilibin and Bobin made a thorough topographic survey of the mountainous regions leading separate research parties. They described the highlands as "a disordered jumble of round hills with soft outlines".
Geography
The Yudoma-Maya Highlands are located in the upper basin of the
Maya River
The Maya (russian: Мая) is a river in Khabarovsk Krai and Sakha, Russia. It is a right tributary of the Aldan of the Lena basin. The length of the river is . The area of its basin . The Maya freezes up in late October and stays under the ice ...
, a tributary of the
Aldan River
The Aldan (russian: Алдан) is the second-longest, right tributary of the Lena in the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia.
Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
They are bound to the west by the
Skalisty Range
The Skalisty Range (russian: Скалистый хребет; sah, Скалистай) is a range of mountains in far North-eastern Russia, part of the East Siberian System. Administratively the mountain chain belongs to the Sakha Republic. The ...
and the
Sette-Daban
The Sette-Daban (russian: Сетте-Дабан, sah, Сэттэ Дабаан) is a range of mountains in far North-eastern Russia. Administratively the range belongs partly to the Sakha Republic and partly to the Khabarovsk Krai of the Russia ...
subranges of the
Verkhoyansk Range
The Verkhoyansk Range (russian: Верхоянский хребет, ''Verkhojanskiy Khrebet''; sah, Үөһээ Дьааҥы сис хайата, ''Üöhee Chaangy sis khaĭata'') is a mountain range in the Sakha Republic, Russia near the settle ...
, and to the north by the
Suntar-Khayata Range
Suntar-Khayata Range (russian: Сунтар-Хаята, sah, Сунтаар Хайата) is a granite mountain range rising along the border of the Sakha Republic in the north with Amur Oblast and Khabarovsk Krai in the south.
The R504 Kolyma H ...
. The highlands reach the valley of the
Okhota River
The Okhota (russian: Охота, from an Even word ''окат'' (okat) meaning "river") is a river in Khabarovsk Krai which flows south to the Sea of Okhotsk near the port town of Okhotsk.Dzhugdzhur Range
The Dzhugdzhur Mountains (russian: Джугджу́р) or Jugjur Mountains, meaning 'big bulge' in Evenki, are a mountain range along the western shores of the Sea of Okhotsk in the far east of Siberia.
The mountains are quite deserted, the ...
. The average heights range between and , the heights increasing towards the south.Юдомо-Майское нагорье / Great Soviet Encyclopedia; in 35 vol.] / Ch. ed. Yu.S. Osipov . - M .:
Great Russian Encyclopedia
The ''Great Russian Encyclopedia'' (GRE; russian: Большая российская энциклопедия, БРЭ, transliterated as ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya entsiklopediya'' or academically as ''Bolšaja rossijskaja enciklopedija'') is a u ...
continental climate
Continental climates often have a significant annual variation in temperature (warm summers and cold winters). They tend to occur in the middle latitudes (40 to 55 north), within large landmasses where prevailing winds blow overland bringing som ...
. January temperatures range from to . The coldest temperatures recorded reach between and . In summer the average July temperature in the valleys does not exceed . Precipitation is between and per year. Most of the yearly precipitation falls in the second half of summer in the form of rain.
Flora
Large swathes of the highlands are covered by
taiga
Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruce ...
up to elevations between and . The areas adjacent to the valleys are covered with
larch
Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains furt ...
and pine forests, especially in the southern region. Above there is
spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...
and
birch
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...
taiga up to a height of . In the northern parts of the highlands there are thickets of
dwarf cedar
''Pinus sibirica'', or Siberian pine, in the family Pinaceae is a species of pine tree that occurs in Siberia from 58°E in the Ural Mountains east to 126°E in the Stanovoy Range in southern Sakha Republic, and from Igarka at 68°N in the lower ...
and
mountain tundra
Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation, with an associated harsh climate. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets ...