Geographical and genetic aspects of the Red Book of Russian Soils

An overview of soil objects from different regions and of different categories that are listed in the Red Book of Russian Soils is presented. Most of these objects are soils that support the existence of rare plant and animal species; the number of reference and zonal soils is almost equal and sufficient attention has been paid to soils that are used for scientific and training purposes. Semidesert soils are represented best; less focus is given to steppe soils; podzols and podzolic soils of Siberia have been given fairly limited consideration. To describe Russian soils in their real diversity makes it necessary to include new reference (cryozems and svetlozems) and rare (granuzem and cryoaridic) soils in the Red Book.