Famine is one of the worst, if not the worst of the disasters that afflict humankind. The people affected are reduced to chronic poverty and are in absolute want. Probably the worst thing about a famine is that it is not only caused by natural phenomena, but it is ... due to man-made causes that could have been avoided. A famine is not just simply caused by a crop failure whose immediate cause is meteorological, usually drought, but is also produced by a complex of social and economic forces that reflect general rural poverty. The Russian famine of 1891-92 affected an area of around 900,000 square miles in the Volga and central agricultural areas. Ironically, these were once the most fertile and productive parts of Russia.