Khakasiya

Khakasiya, also spelled Khakassia, republic in central Russia. The republic occupies the western half of the broad Minusinsk Basin on the upper Yenisey River. The Abakan River, a tributary of the Yenisey, forms the axis of the republic. Southeast of the Abakan’s valley rise the Western (Zapadny) Sayan mountains, reaching 9,613 feet (2,930 metres) in Mount Karagosh, and to the west and northwest are the Abakan and Kuznetsk Alatau mountains, with their highest point at Mount Verkhny Zub (7,146 feet [2,178 metres]). The enclosed basin has a dry, severely continental climate that has produced steppe and forest-steppe vegetation in the lowlands, though a considerable amount of grassland has been plowed, especially since the Virgin and Idle Lands Campaign of the 1950s. The mountains are covered with forests of larch, pine, fir, and spruce.

The Khakass are a heterogeneous Siberian group of people who speak a variety of Turkic languages, predominantly Khakass. They constitute only about 10 percent of the republic’s population; Russians make up nearly 80 percent. The Khakass were originally nomadic herders; the raising of sheep and goats remains an important economic activity. In the lowlands the construction of irrigation projects has increased stock capacity of pastures and the area and yield of crops, primarily wheat, oats, millet, and potatoes. Mining has been important since copper first attracted Russian settlers in the 18th century. Rich iron ore is mined at Abaza and Teya, gold on the upper Chulym, coal at Chernogorsk, and barites at Askiz, and there are several molybdenum and molybdenum–copper–tungsten deposits. The forests of the republic are exploited for timber. Abakan is the administrative centre. In 1989 one of Russia’s largest hydroelectric stations was completed on the Yenisey near Sayanogorsk, with a generating capacity of 6,400 megawatts. The station was built to provide power for major industrial development in the Minusinsk Basin. Area 23,900 square miles (61,900 square km). Pop. (2008 est.) 537,230.