AHC: non-Russian states in North Asia/Siberia

In OTL, Russia came to dominate all of North Asia. Could there have been a POD where (at least parts of) North Asia was ruled by someone other than Russia? Perhaps China, Mongolia, breakaway Cossack states, more successful Tatar states, or indigenous states?
 
Most likely three would be a Turkic state like a more successful Volga Bulgaria (in the absence of the Mongols/an equivalent), a reformed Golden Horde/equivalent Mongol state stretching from the Russian heartland to Alaska, or an alt-China expanding into that power vacuum in the 18th century or so. Maybe an early expansionist alt-Japan that goes for northern lands (Hokkaido, Karafuto) first followed by Kamchatka and then whatever of Siberia they can manage to exploit (IMO not much further than the Lena River at best). I like the Golden Horde/Tatar option the best.

Other than that I wonder if you'd get a "scramble for North Asia" if Russia wasn't there, starting with the fur trade and continuing with gold rushes and such. Could make for an alt-Canada, although getting to the interior is pretty awful from the Pacific coast considering the lack of good harbors between the Amur and Kamchatka, no easy river access to the interior since they all flow south-north, and plenty of mountains. It's far easier to colonize Siberia from the west or even from Manchuria/Mongolia than it is from the east. In this case you're likely to see a bunch of post-colonial states eventually emerge with maybe a Chukotka/Kamchatka/Kolyma/Okhotsk coast which is majority European.

Yakutia will be interesting since it's much more ethnically homogeneous than a lot of other parts of Siberia (IIRC this is because the Sakha successfully expanded at the expense of other peoples in the 16-18th century, not sure how involved the Russians were or if other groups could substitute the Russian influence) and I don't see a lot of colonists settling there. However, if they got the Okhotsk Coast so as to have access to a port which is closer to export markets they'd have more white people there and could end up an Apartheid/Rhodesia style state. Reason I bring this up is because they could be the regional power in the context of post-colonial Siberia, even if their economy is kept afloat thanks to all sorts of neocolonialism regarding their resources and infrastructure. They could end up a useful local proxy, although perhaps as an even worse fate they'd combine Somalia's clan tensions with Congo-Kinshasa's remoteness/bad infrastructure and economy too dependent on mining.

Although it's perhaps equally likely the entire area becomes "Africa but cold as hell" after colonialism since aside from Yakutia most potential post-colonial states will have all sorts of ethnic tension combined with remoteness combined with having obscene amounts of corruption from their mining industries. Although maybe they'd get lucky and gain independence as one state and have an ideology like pan-Turkism (Turkic ethnic groups will be the most numerous and control the best land) which will help them out domestically and internationally, especially regarding whatever happens in Central Asia.
 
Buryatia (not just modern Buryatia, I mean the entire region around Lake Baikal) is perhaps the second most viable East Siberian state, but without Russian interference it would likely just be considered to be North Mongolia. Even if Mongolia ends up a dependency of another country I think the suzerain would back Mongolia's claim to the region, even if it's just out of land-hunger. Likewise, I think the arc from Chita to Khabarovsk to Vladivostok would be considered an extension of Manchuria.

If you want to keep Russia out of Siberia you'd absolutely need a militarized state blocking their path; the Sibir Khanate was almost this but then Russian migrants pretty much dismantled it from within. Maybe a surviving Timurid union of Iran and Central Asia propping up an northward-expanding Golden Horde successor (e.g. Kazakhs) could do the trick? Russia can definitely be held off (the Crimean khanate did this well into the 1700s) but it'll take work. The main problem is that Siberia's population density is quite low and there's few ways to naturally boost it given how hard agriculture is, but a state with an economic/population base elsewhere (Kazakhstan, Oirat lands) has a chance of offsetting those disadvantages. Hey, maybe instead of the Kalmyks migrating straight-west you could have them go kinda northwest and bring other Oirats with them to the Ob valley, creating a northern Dzungaria.

Another possible scenario is a Zaporizhian-Host analogue where you have a state of Slavs (even Cossacks) but they see the Tsar as a threat to their lifestyle and accept patronage from stronger states to hold Russia off. For the Ukrainians it was the Ottomans, maybe this "Tobolsk Host" could be backed by the uber-Timurids mentioned earlier. The Tobolsk Host could, however, also seek the patronage of Western powers-- the Pomor port of Mangazeya on the Arctic coast was so popular with English/Swedish fur-traders that it began cutting into the profits of the inland furtrappers in Tyumen, who then petitioned the Tsar to shut Mangazeya down. Maybe a Kalmar Union/mega-Sweden could strike up a healthy correspondence with Tobolsk and guarantee its independence?

The other rather existential threat for a Siberian-majority Siberia would be China and to a lesser extent Korea-- farmers from both countries would likely flee to Siberia in the case of unrest back home, and may create local self-government structures along the lines of the kongsi republics in Borneo or Korean village communes in Gando. This could potentially be turned to the Siberians' favor-- if it's mostly just East-Asian men fleeing up there, they might take local wives and then a couple generations down the line you have a Peranakan group of people who are technically Chinese but see their priorities as locally-rooted and fear Chinese colonization as nothing but trouble for them (it would only bring competitors for Siberia's mining riches). In the absolute most optimistic case you could see these Northern Peranakan adopt Sakha as their main language of daily life and thus assist in any pan-Turkist unification movements (the Indonesian Chinese adoption of Malay helped secure that language's future as the pan-Indonesian tongue). However I don't have much faith in this possibility. In Maritime SEA, the Chinese were filling niches within an existing economy. Malay was already the language of the bazaar, and upon entering the bazaar the Chinese adopted it. In Siberia they'd pretty much be inventing a whole new agricultural/retail/export economy that the locals may (not) participate in that heavily outside of the lower rungs of resource extraction (furtrapping, logging).

Besides the west and south the final area of concern would likely be the eastern coast, though metalinvader has discussed the difficulties of colonizing through there. Still, a European or Asian naval power will definitely try establishing some manner of protectorate over the coast, at which point they'd probably swamp the local Chukchi, Itelmen, and Tungusic peoples. And then as long as the interior peoples are good economic partners I think they'll be content to let the maximum extent of their inland expansion be missionary expeditions. In the best case for Siberia they can serve as a block on a northward expansion of East Asia, similar to the role Russia played for independent Mongolia. Hell, they might even prop up a Sakha tygyn as "High Lord of the Northern Wastes" in order to keep any western/southern encroachers out and to gain a local ally for their economic exploitation/proselytizing.

I agree that a pan-Turkist movement is perhaps the best best for achieving an all-Siberian state, and as partners for the Sakha I'd suggest the Altai (who developed a millenarian resistance religion with pan-Turkic elements during the Russian Revolution) and Tuvans. Maybe the state could be called Uriankhai, it seems to have been a popular catch-all exonym for northern forest Turks. They'd have to come to some accommodation with the Uralic Nenets and Tungusic Evenks, though.

So basically I'm imagining something that kinda looks like this: upload_2019-7-13_21-43-19.png
Here's another map with the river routes featured sib.png. (Western buffer centered on Ob-Irtysh, Uriankhai on Yenisei-Lena)

For economic prospects with those borders: the Eastern Buffer could survive off fishing, North Mongolia/Manchuria would have their destinies tied to their respecting heartlands, the Western Buffer could make a real killing off Tyumen oil and then phase into Yamal natural-gas a-la-Qatar if literally everything goes right. I think the best case scenario for Uriankhai would be a Finland-style transformation (starting off with forestry, then getting German investors to build local paper mills, and then on and on with bigger and bigger industrial ventures) that lessens the dependence of the economy on mining. For all this positive transformation to happen, the area would have to avoid getting caught up in great-power struggles. It might be able to do that by virtue of its isolation, but that didn't work out so well for South America...

Going back to basics, though, I think the real thorny issue is that due to the indigenes' low population density (although it might be higher in a no-colonization scenario; the Russians did kill a lot of people on the eastward march) and lack of economic/military clout, the fate of Siberia depends to a large extent on actors outside Siberia. And engineering changes to keep those actors out will itself cause massive changes elsewhere (the impact of tiny Russia alone is world-shaking).
 
Last edited:
If you want to keep Russia out of Siberia you'd absolutely need a militarized state blocking their path; the Sibir Khanate was almost this but then Russian migrants pretty much dismantled it from within. Maybe a surviving Timurid union of Iran and Central Asia propping up an northward-expanding Golden Horde successor (e.g. Kazakhs) could do the trick? Russia can definitely be held off (the Crimean khanate did this well into the 1700s) but it'll take work. The main problem is that Siberia's population density is quite low and there's few ways to naturally boost it given how hard agriculture is, but a state with an economic/population base elsewhere (Kazakhstan, Oirat lands) has a chance of offsetting those disadvantages. Hey, maybe instead of the Kalmyks migrating straight-west you could have them go kinda northwest and bring other Oirats with them to the Ob valley, creating a northern Dzungaria.
I'm not sure how the Sibir Khanate was or could ever have been an effective barrier, the Russians needed mere hundreds of men to conquer the region. Kazakhstan is also an ineffective barrier because IOTL Russia pretty much conquered all of North Asia before dealing with the Kazakhs. The example of Crimea is also a poor one because it involves different types of people with different military potential, the Crimeans were also propped up by the Ottomans.

This could potentially be turned to the Siberians' favor-- if it's mostly just East-Asian men fleeing up there, they might take local wives and then a couple generations down the line you have a Peranakan group of people who are technically Chinese but see their priorities as locally-rooted and fear Chinese colonization as nothing but trouble for them (it would only bring competitors for Siberia's mining riches). In the absolute most optimistic case you could see these Northern Peranakan adopt Sakha as their main language of daily life and thus assist in any pan-Turkist unification movements (the Indonesian Chinese adoption of Malay helped secure that language's future as the pan-Indonesian tongue). However I don't have much faith in this possibility. In Maritime SEA, the Chinese were filling niches within an existing economy. Malay was already the language of the bazaar, and upon entering the bazaar the Chinese adopted it. In Siberia they'd pretty much be inventing a whole new agricultural/retail/export economy that the locals may (not) participate in that heavily outside of the lower rungs of resource extraction (furtrapping, logging).
Well you don't need to have indigenous states, just non-Russian.

Going back to basics, though, I think the real thorny issue is that due to the indigenes' low population density (although it might be higher in a no-colonization scenario; the Russians did kill a lot of people on the eastward march) and lack of economic/military clout, the fate of Siberia depends to a large extent on actors outside Siberia. And engineering changes to keep those actors out will itself cause massive changes elsewhere (the impact of tiny Russia alone is world-shaking).
I don't think the indigenous population was ever much larger than what we see under the Russians:

https://books.google.com/books?id=i85noYD9C0EC&pg=PA538&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
Well, go back far enough and have the Finno-Ugric peoples such as the Mordvins and Mari win out over the Slavs in the tribal primordial stew that was pre-Varangian Russia, and one could potentially see a Finno-Ugric state where Russia is today. Alternatively re: Finno-Ugric peoples, it might somehow be possible to wank the Komi state of Great Perm and have them expand eastward, especially in one of the scenarios I'm thinking of below, where Russia gets knocked out of commission.

It might be possible to engineer some sort of nomadic polity based in the Pontic Steppe that keeps the Russians down (or at least at bay) long enough to be able to reform itself over time, or at least for someone else to settle Siberia. This polity could potentially unite the whole Eurasian steppe and stretch to the Pacific, or alternatively just be an agent with which to screw Russia while other fun stuff happens in Siberia. A reformed Golden Horde was suggested up above, which is a good idea, though I don't see the Golden Horde being able to hold control over European Russia or remain united for all that much longer than they did OTL without a run of talented leaders and/or serious structural reform; even if they put down Muscovy (which could maybe have happened if they didn't lose their nerve at the Vorskla river), someone was probably eventually going to break their stranglehold.

Alternatives re: steppe polity include but are not limited to the Crimean Khanate (which at one point was one battle away from breaking Muscovy, and might have better long-term chances than the rest of these due to their affiliation with the Ottomans), the above-mentioned Volga Bolghars, the Cumans (who are I think underrated in terms of raw power; they repeatedly defeated the Russians during their two centuries dominating the Pontic Steppe but lacked the unity needed to press their advantage. If a strong Khan had managed to tighten their loose confederation, Russia, or whoever they set their sights on, would've been in deep trouble), or, going back further, the Khazars (if you enjoy the idea of a Jewish Siberia, they're the people for the job). But still, nomad states are by nature unstable and difficult to reform (sadly there's no real-life CK2 "settle as feudal" button), and someone's probably eventually going to drive the nomads out of Russia and start pushing back against the Steppe peoples.

But that someone didn't necessarily have to be the Russians themselves; I've seen a couple TLs on this board that involved Lithuanian unification of Russia. Before the union with Poland they were a pretty eastward-facing state, with their domain stretching deep into the Rus' lands. If they're able to avoid getting shackled to Poland while still beating the Teutons in the west, then get rid of the Golden Horde/Muscovy and keep the Russians down for long enough, they might be able to colonize Siberia themselves. Meanwhile, Poland-Lithuania was at one point theoretically the leading partner in a personal union with Russia, and if Poland, through this scenario or by other means, manages to hijack the Russian state or otherwise take control, they'll probably have Siberia for themselves. A Commonwealth Siberia could be super interesting considering the serious structural weaknesses of the Commonwealth state (while those were admittedly in part exposed OTL due to Russia's rise, I can't imagine the resource investment necessary to keep the Russians down as the Poles colonize Siberia would help matters) and the power of the Polish nobility. When the state, probably inevitably, collapses, things in Siberia could get very fun. And by fun, I mean a power vacuum and warlordism on a ridiculously huge geographical scale, and that's if outside powers aren't crazy enough to get involved. Alternatively, if someone somehow manages to keep things together, one might have a kingdom of Siberia ruled by an ethnically Polish or Lithuanian monarch, separated from Poland and Lithuania by European Russia.

The easiest way to do this, though, might be to make it so Russia never unites at all, or at least does so too late to settle Siberia. That might be as simple as butterflying the Mongols. Iit's weird to think of preventing the Mongol invasion actually resulting in a Russia-screw, but before that, Kievan Rus had almost totally fallen apart, and showed no signs of permanently reunifying anytime soon. Novgorod was probably the strongest state in the early 1200s, but they were mostly focused northward and westward rather than on Russian dominance. Galicia-Volhynia was doing pretty well for a while there, but they were likewise oriented westward. Vladimir was the other significant power, but by the time the Mongols got there they already seem to have been past their prime, or at least in no position to unify Russia. Between those three and the dozen or so other Russian principalities, there was no clear long-term dominant leader, and none of the above seem likely to have had the motivation or the resources to colonize Siberia. Novgorod would probably have eventually set up trading colonies at the Ob and Yenisei deltas and maybe expanded a little in the Arctic later on, but that really might be it. If not for the Mongol invasion and the resulting rise of Muscovy (and, to a large extent, Lithuania), Russia could easily have ended up slipping further into disunity, perhaps permanently, or at least long enough for someone else to claim Siberia. And even without butterflying the Mongols, it certainly wasn't inevitable that Muscovy would manage to unify Russia. Even after they emerged as the clear strongest state, there were plenty of points where they could've been cut down to size. A disunited Russia probably means no one has the will or resources to colonize Siberia in depth for at least a long while, meaning more time for native states to coalesce and other outsiders to sweep in.
 
Top