The Greater Caucasus Mountains are squeezed between the Black and Caspian Seas. Mount Elbrus at 5633 metres is a huge volcanic dome covered by a large icecap but a little further east more 5,000 metre peaks create an imposing north face. Here during colder times glaciers coalesced to create one long ice flow – the Shkhara Glacier. The western flanks of this great range are covered in forest, which shelter species lost to the rest of Europe.
The Lesser Caucasus Mountains.
The Lesser Caucasus further to the south are a range of 3,000 metre plus peaks, which surround the remote state of Armenia. This ancient Christian kingdom, now diminished in size, itself surrounds the beautiful Lake Sevan and its capital, Yerevan, is overlooked by the active volcano of Mount Ararat (5165 m.). In between the Great and Lesser Caucasus is squeezed the ancient land of Georgia famous for wine and some of the deepest cave systems in the world. There is even a cave city and near the shore of the Caspian in Azerbaijan, north of Baku, there is a fire mountain fuelled by natural gas seeping out of rocks. This republic facing the western coast of the Caspian is quite different in appearance from Georgia in that it gets only a third of the rain of the Black Sea’s east coast.
The Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains extend from the Arctic Sea down to a latitude equal to London. Mount Yamantau (1638 metres) js the highest peak in the southern half of this long narrow range. Here is thick forest with many rivers whose waters ultimately flow into the Caspian. The northern half of the range is mostly tundra and faces frigid Siberia to the east beyond the mighty River Ob.
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains cover a large area of eastern Europe but it is only the Transylvanian Alps in the south where several peaks exceed 2,500 metres. Even here these heights are separated by deep passes with the River Olot occupying the deepest. However the mountains that curve away northwest, although less imposing, are the source of several long rivers flowing south into the Black Sea. The Dniester is the longest and marks the western limit of the Pontic Steppes.
Yggdrasil and Middle World 