Originally Slavs were farming peoples that dwelled in forests. A forest, on the other hand, served as protection of an agricultural, society such as Slavs' against surrounding enemies, and at the same time it provided its people with furs, one of the important exports of Russia since olden times. And yet this trade in furs as a direct motive plus international economic situation contributed to the conquest and first cultivation of Siberia. In course of time, however, with a sudden decrease of the number of furred animals in this region a fanatic state which might have been properly described as the “fur age” began to move from the west to the east of Siberia only to disappear. And in place of the “fur age, ” settlement by farming people in the southern part of Siberia began to stretch out from one steppe to another.
When we see a chart of population distribution in Siberia of the present day, we have to take into account such a historical background as stated above.

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On the basis of the “text” of the Siberian Map of 181 (1672-1673), it had been conjectured in Russia since the nineteenth century that the Siberian Map was made up around the years 1672-1673. The original Map of Siberia of 181 (1672-1673) has never discovered yet, but fortunately we have what are believed to be its threedifferent copies.
L. Bagrow, regarding these copies as having much to do with the “text” of 181, asserted that they were reproductions of the original Map of Siberia of 181 (1672). In spite of some opposition, not a few scholars of the Soviet Union have followed Bagrow.
B.P. Polevoy, at the February 1954 conference of the U.S.S.R. Geographical Society, held in Leningrad, presented a report, saying that at least the eastern half of the Map of Siberia of 181 was made by S.V. Polyakov in 1673, and that the author of the “text” of the Siberian Map of 181 was also Polyakov. A.I. Andreyev supports this opinion almost completely.
This view is so plausible that most probably the Map of 181 will hereafter be called the “Map of Siberia of 1673.”
However, I do not believe the view will survive criticism and become an established theory before Polevoy's report, still not made public, be published.

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