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About 60% of the worlds peat resources are found in Russia and Siberia in particular. These peatlands cover an area of more than 760,000,000 ha. A number of mire zones occur in Siberia from the north to south. In the far north are the arctic mineral sedge mires; south of this is a zone of flat palsa (a peat bog with an ice core); then comes the domed palsa zone; then comes the most abundant peatland type namely the domed raised bogs with pools and ridges. South of this zone most of the mires are formed by reeds and tall sedges with salt mires occurring in the most southern part of West Siberia and Kazakhstan. Most mires in the region started to form about 11,000 years ago. Peat accumulation (during the Holocene) increases going from the cold north with frozen bogs to the south below the perma frost zone by a factor 3-5. In contrast no significant differences in actual peat accumulation rates could be established between North and South parts of the West Siberian peatlands.The largest single raised bog in the world covering some 5,160,000 ha is believed to occur in West Siberia at Vasuganskoe.

	Oligo-mesotrophical through-flow fen near the center of the Great Vasyugan Bog complex, Southern part of West Siberian Plain ©Wladimir Bleuten, 1998
	Small lake in an oligotrophic bog of the Northern Taiga Subzone of the West Siberian Plain, near Noyabrsk. Locally the ridges contain perma frost. ©Wladimir Bleuten,1999
	Active Palsa in Northern Taiga Subzone of the West Siberian Plain. ©Wladimir Bleuten, 1999
	Primary, up to 30 m high, mixed forest of Pinus species, Picea species and birch on 5 m thick groundwater fed peat-layers ('sogra'). Southern Taiga Subzone of West Sibarian plain near Tomsk. ©Wladimir Bleuten,1998
	Big oligotrophic, primary lake in the centre of the Great Vasyuagan Bog Complex, Southern part of West Siberian Plain. ©Wladimir Bleuten, 1998
	Eutrophic valley bogs in a former ice-marginal-valley, Middle Taiga Subzone, near Strezjevoj, West Siberian Plain. ©Wladimir Bleuten, 1995
	Lake in oligotrophic bog in the Southern Taiga Subzone, West Siberian Plain. ©Wladimir Bleuten, 1996
	Mesotrophic open fen on Ob-river terraces, West Siberia, near Tomsk. In the background mixed pinus birch taiga forest. Peat depth 1-6 m. ©Elena Lapshina 1996
	Oligotrophic string bog complex with primary lakes in the southern Taiga Subzone of West Siberian plain. Strings are green by stunted pinus silvestris trees (1-2 m high). ©Wladimir Bleuten, 1995
	Ombrotrophic peat ecosystems near Nizhnevartovsk, West Siberian Plain: Peat 'islands' with pinus in peat 'sea' in September. ©Wladimir Bleuten, 2000.
	Lena Delta, Jakutia, Sibiria. Copyright Michael Succow 1999.