Caspian Sea used to be larger
Great cataclysms characterized the end of the last Ice Age. With glaciers blocking the Ob & Yenisei from draining into the Arctic, melting ice instead flooded to the west - into the Aral Sea, the Caspian, the Black Sea, and eventually the Mediterranean: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_flo… 
Caspian seals, Arctic ringed seals, & Baikal seals are all descendants of the same seal population that spread during this cataclysm, as the waters from Lake Baikal to the Mediterranean were connected 12000 BC - 9000 BC.
By 9700 BC the hydrological conditions had stabilized to the point that EHGs (who I'd guess from the region between Lake Mansi & Aral Sea) were able to settle what is now European Russia. CHGs don't seem to have advanced north for unknown reason.
https://twitter.com/Peter_Nimitz/status/1279554555382906880?s=20
My guess is that that EHGs had a "cultural toolkit" better adapted for life in the northern latitudes than the CHGs - 75% of their ancestors were ANEs who had lived in modern day Irkutsk Oblast 22,000-13,000 BC, a cold area now, and probably colder then. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27ta%…
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