Siberia - Undesirable Real Estate

Back in Geneva, where we have -8 C and snow.  Flight back from Japan was OK, but I was struck by one thought. I am used to flying from place to place, but the longest flight that you typically do in Europe is about three hours, and that would be middle Europe to Helsinki say.   From Japan you fly over Siberia, from the Sea of Japan to the Ural Mountains.  Four or five hours in total of nothing but blank desolation.  Snow, trees with no roads or habitation.   I read a book about the the Gulag, and how it took the prisoners six weeks in a train from Moscow to arrive at their final camps.  Now I know why.  Such vastness, untouched, and due to the conditions, nigh on untouchable.