Corn is collected by machine on a collective farm in Ukraine, formerly known as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Ukraine made up 3 percent of the total area of the USSR while housing nearly one-fifth of its population. Except for the Carpathian Mountains to the west and Crimean Mountains in the south, Ukraine is home to flat grasslands called steppe, providing fertile soil and huge coal and iron deposits.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Ukraine," May 1987, National Geographic magazine)