Nature
The climate is moderate continental, with snowy winters and a short but rather hot summer. Formerly almost all territory was covered with thick conifer forest (fir, pine), but now a large portion of it has been replaced with birch-and-aspen secondary forests and crop fields. Swamps also take considerable areas.
Large animals have been much reduced in numbers, but there are still some bears, wolves, foxes, moose, and wild boars.
A great number of wild birds live and nest in the oblast.
In cities, most common birds are pigeons, jackdaws, hooded crows, rooks, house sparrows, and great tits.
The Volga River flows through Yaroslavl Oblast, with two major dams constructed at Uglich and Rybinsk. The Rybinsk Reservoir, filled between 1941 and 1947, is one of the largest in Europe; its filling flooded the town of Mologa and several hundreds of villages, necessitating the relocation of some 150,000 in Yaroslavl, Vologda, and Kalinin (now Tver) Oblasts.
Mineral resources are limited to construction materials (such as sand, gravel, clay) and peat. There are also mineral water springs and wells.
Read more about this topic: Yaroslavl Oblast
Famous quotes containing the word nature:
“Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If a weakly mortal is to do anything in the world besides eat the bread thereof, there must be a determined subordination of the whole nature to the one aim—no trifling with time, which is passing, with strength which is only too limited.”
—Beatrice Potter Webb (1858–1943)