The Oak and the Larch by Sophie Pinkham review are Russia's forests the key to its identity?

"When Sophie Pinkham opens her fascinating book with the claim that Russia has more trees than there are stars in our galaxy, it might seem as though she is merely using a poetic turn of phrase. But the statistic is correct: while the Milky Way is estimated to have roughly 200bn stars, Russia has something in the region of 642bn trees."

"Different leaders have proposed different strategies for extracting value from the land, leading to cycles of deforestation and tree-planting depending on whether the priority was boosting agriculture, building Peter the Great's imperial fleet, extracting minerals or constructing hydroelectric dams. Politically, it has been a place of resistance and of ultranationalist rhetoric glorifying the idea of Russian self-sufficiency. As well as being an ideological battleground, the forest in Russia has frequently been a literal one."

Russia's forests contain roughly 642 billion trees and stretch from the Arctic tundra through central Asia to the Pacific. The forests provide furs, minerals, and rivers rich with salmon while presenting dangers and majestic landscapes. Forests influence national identity and cultural symbolism and have been shaped by policies to boost agriculture, build naval fleets, extract minerals, and construct hydroelectric dams, producing cycles of deforestation and replanting. Forests have served as sites of political resistance and ultranationalist rhetoric about self-sufficiency. Military operations from the Mongol invasion to modern conflicts have depended on knowledge of the woods, and partisan fighters used forests for concealment and sabotage.

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