This paper summarizes a series of studies on chromosomal geography of the common shrew Sorex araneus L. in Siberia and the Southern Urals. Chromosomal races inhabiting the Southern Urals and the Western Siberian Plain sequentially replace each other in the latitudinal direction. In this region, karyotypes of each two adjacent races differ from each other by a single whole-arm reciprocal translocation. In the Eastern Siberian branch, the neighboring races differ mainly in the number or set of metacentric chromosomes. Analysis of the race distribution in the common shrew in the context of paleophysiology of the glacial period allowed us to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the establishment of the present-day structure of the species.