AHC: Russia does not expand eastward

What?

Sorry, no.

They didn't "keep losing", they couldn't "conquer and keep Azov and Crimea". The Tatars were completely on the defensive and were saved every time by firing the steppes denying Russians horse fodder. The last successful offensives they launched were in the early 16th c. and after that they and the Ottomans were consistently beaten by the Russians when they tried going on offensive.

They do seem to have been able to launch slave raids with some success, but that's more a problem with facing hit and run raiders than anything else, if I'm not mistaken and hardly kind of military might that can break Russia as a state.
 
They do seem to have been able to launch slave raids with some success, but that's more a problem with facing hit and run raiders than anything else, if I'm not mistaken and hardly kind of military might that can break Russia as a state.

The Qing faced the same problem as did the Ming before them as did Poland. Turkey was raided by Cossacks regularly. Ottoman allies in North Africa kept raiding all of Europe including Ireland Norway and Iceland...you get my point. Raiding was a fact of life in the 17th. C. It wasn't a serious threat to the state.
 
The Qing faced the same problem as did the Ming before them as did Poland. Turkey was raided by Cossacks regularly. Ottoman allies in North Africa kept raiding all of Europe including Ireland Norway and Iceland...you get my point. Raiding was a fact of life in the 17th. C. It wasn't a serious threat to the state.

Yeah. About the only thing it seems to indicate is that some areas were more able to fend it off than others - raiding can lead to great damage with a weak enough state (usually as a consequence of what happens when the state is so vulnerable, as far as I can tell), or it can just be painful and humiliating.

But it seems like Russia, unless the Golden Horde was what it was much earlier, is far from insecure here - justifiably taking all prudent precautions, but more likely to push east than be pushed by the east.
 
You know, guys, what is the problem with your PoDs concerning Russia?

You all think that Rus/Russia was somehow destined to unite, create an Empire and conquer the neighbors. And the only way to stop it was either to strangle Russia in a cradle or surround it with all powerful neighbors like longer living Golden Horde or enormous HRE or something like that.

But let us remember history of Rus before the Mongol domination:
First of all we have to exclude first century when Norse Viking warlords conquered the Slavic tribes of East Europe and tried to rob and conquer everything else in Crimea, Bulgaria, Khazaria, the Caucasus and anywhere else.
When this turbulent violent Norse Viking period is over we have Slav-speaking polity with a warrior elite of Scandinavian origin - and we have 250 years of non-expanding Rus.
It was not much of a threat for its neighbors most of the time. Actually the main challenge was to protect itself against the steppe nomads and some others.
Rus was not a nation, it was not an ethnicity. It was a geopolitical notion. The Vikings conquered half a dozen of tribal unions closely related but they never amalgamated into a single people. These tribes felt some sort of unity under the rule of princes from Rurikid dynasty and the Orthodox Metropolitan of Rus. But most of the time they were disunited like a confederation of Princes which united from time to time against invaders.
The most famous Grand Princes acquired domination over all Rus for some period of time for which they usually deserved an epithet of 'Great' or 'Wise'.
But the tendency of Rus was towards further disintegration and when the Mongols came there was no united Rus for a long time. It was a loose confederation of Princes.

So the obvious PoD is to butterfly the Mongol invasion. Chingiz Khan died when a little boy or something like that.
In this case by 1300-1500 there would be 3-7 countries on the territory of Rus, closely related, remembering their common origin but readily fighting each other. They would ally with neighboring states against other Russian states. These Russian states wouldn't be too strong, their Princes would not be absolute monarchs. Internally politically they will be close to Polish monarchy with powerfull nobility or Novgorodian republic.

But if you do not want to butterfly away the Mongol domination there is another way to avoid Russian expansion to the East or anywhere else:
It was the Mongols who created the Russian unity - they installed Grand Princes and gave them power to collect tribute from the Mongolian Rus. So 200 years the Mongols united their Rus under a Russian Grand Prince and this Grand Prince had much more power than it had before the Mongols.
So the Mongols created the united Russian State as we know it.

But that could be easily butterflied away:
The Mongols do not give power to collect tribute from all Rus to a single Russian Grand Prince. Instead they have half a dozen Russian Princes responsible for gathering tribute each from his own territory. Instead of a Russian Grand Prince there is a Mongol official somewhere nearby who is responsible for the collecting tribute from Rus before the Khan of the Golden Horde.
So we have additional 200 years of disunity of North Eastern Rus.
After the inevitable fall of the Golden Horde we have half a dozen of Russian Princes each controlling his territory. The best case scenario is that this loose confederation drive away the Mongols from Russian territory.

But there is very little chance of this Russia expanding to the East.
 
But there is very little chance of this Russia expanding to the East.

Yuri Vsevolodovich fought Bulgar and founded Nizhny and was preparing for new campaigns, and before that Russian settlers from Novgorod lands started settling Vyatka.

Russian settlements extended to the Donets and somewhat past it in the pre-Cuman era.

Princes of Galich started raiding for the fur tribute to the Northern Urals/Yugra as early as the 1320s.

Russian missionaries reached Perm by the 14th c. as well.

This is where the Stroganovs started operation by the way, and they are the ones that bankrolled Yermak and co.

So - northern waterways, fur tribute, missionaries. All components in place way before Moscow's domination of North-Eastern Rus was unquestionable.

There doesn't need to be a unified state to expand east. Expanding east was the default trend during the worst period of division and under the early Mongol period as well.

As soon as Kazan (which replaced Bulgar) fell in the 16th c. expansion became really rapid.

There will be expansion east, the question is how fast?
 
Yuri Vsevolodovich fought Bulgar and founded Nizhny and was preparing for new
campaigns...
As soon as Kazan (which replaced Bulgar) fell in the 16th c. expansion became
really rapid.
Well I guess we both agree that in the world with butterflied Mongols the key element of preventing Rus eastward expansion is independent Volga Bulgars.

I wonder what makes you so sure that the Volgar Bulgars were doomed against the Russian expansion.

Volga Bulgaria was a flourishing civilization. According to some historians, over 80% of the country's population was killed during the Mongol invasion. The agricultural development suffered a severe decline and they say that this area never reached the level it had had before the Mongols.

As for me I think that the Volga Bulgars had all chances to hold against the Russians.

By the way you know that the Battle of Samara Bend (or the Battle of Kernek) between Volga Bulgaria and the Mongols in 1223, probably was one of the first battles in history which the Mongols lost.
That was when the Russians suffered only humiliating defeats against the Mongols.
So military the Bulgars were not that weak as you may think.

So - northern waterways, fur tribute, missionaries.
Northern waterways - may be so.
But you can not compare the eastward expansion of disunited Rus with the expansion of Ivan the Terrible.
You should read about the internal fights of Russian princes against each other - it drained their strength a lot. And the Cumans took part in it.

Edit:
By the way the Cumans did just fine against the Russ in OTL. In this ATL in the world without the Mongols they might expand into the Siberia as the Mongols did. And the Russians would meet a serious competition from their part as well.
 
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Volga Bulgaria was a flourishing civilization. According to some historians, over 80% of the country's population was killed during the Mongol invasion. The agricultural development suffered a severe decline and they say that this area never reached the level it had had before the Mongols.

As for me I think that the Volga Bulgars had all chances to hold against the Russians.

Kama-Chusovaya is the best route to Siberia and if they can hold it they are in a good place. Complete agreement. Can't keep the Russians out of Perm and Yugra though.

We're not seeing the crazy 16th c. expansion in the 13th. c. because in the 13th c. Russians are busy with internal colonization. New towns getting founded all over Zalesye and the North and Donets and Smolenschina. Once the population densities are sufficient there will be excess people to throw at the East.

Without the Mongol devastation it might happen earlier than the historical 16th c. timeframe.

By the way the Cumans did just fine against the Russ in OTL. In this ATL in the world without the Mongols they might expand into the Siberia as the Mongols did. And the Russians would meet a serious competition from their part as well.

The Cumans weren't too numerous and generally the Rus were managing the situation quite well by the 13th c. On the other hand, Siberia as you said is a total unknown in terms of who controls the fur tribute and the grazing grounds in the period. Probably some Eastern Kypchaks/Bashkirs/Qangly as you say.

Would be interesting if there did arise something like a unified state in the Lower Volga/Lower Ural led by Kypchaks. Might block Russia's southern routes for sure.
 
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