Could Siberia be a prosperous country? [European Russia Timeline]

Apple3169

Banned
In this timeline, a powerful nation (Which manages to maintain his political power for a long time) that located on Eurasia, prevents Russia from colonizing Siberia. From 16th century to 19th century, this nations wins battles against the Tsardom of Russia. Russian armies got crushed. (the political crises this causes could even and up with the removal of Ivan IV). Tsardom of Russia focuses on Scandinavia, Caucaisa, Anatolia, Iran and the Polish.
We have a few scenarios for this
  • Golden Horde: Although Golden Horde loses Eastern Europe to Russians, they managed to keep their ruling on the east side (North of Turkestan). With strategically gifted Khans and generals they are colonizing Turkestan, they're creating a block that Russians cannot past. They're colonizing Siberia and establish large borders on the region.
  • Khanate of Chagatai: Chagatais beated down Timurids and prevented loss of land. They're reaching over the North and colonized the Siberia.
  • Yuan Dynasty: After Yuans got kicked from the China. They are starting to colonize the Siberia from the Outer Mongolia.
This "Nation" we may name no matter what, industralized and meets with the Western Culture after 19th century. With several coups and revolutions. They are becoming a constitutional monarchy or republic. (Siberian Federation)

In this scenario, dou you think that this country would be a developed country and be one of the major powers of the world?

PO: My personal opinion is, i personally think in this scenario Russia may live a bloody coup after several defeats on attempts of colonizing Siberia and expanding their territories. This even cause them to be more savage against the Western nations and the Ottoman Empire. May be the Bolshevik Revolution occur much faster. Considering Russia isn't large as it is in our scenario, this also will make them more visible during the Cold War era.
Siberian Fedaration, no matter what will need American help to survive between the China and Russia. So i have no doubt they will support the USA during the Cold War.
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LostInNewDelhi

LostInNewDelhi

It would help if Manchuria (as much of the Amur basin as possible) was attached to it. The blue blob in your map doesn't have an agricultural area of the same stature.
 
Cregan

Cregan

Surviving - and modernised, thriving but restrained - Golden Horde is your best way to achieve this. They would have to hold onto the Urals, Volga basin, Central Asia and Caucasus too, along with Mongolia and Manchuria, to be a viable Siberian superstate. Kazan would be a pretty solid capital city for this TTL Golden Horde.

Also prevent the unification and rise of Russia by keeping the East Slavic principalities divided, but still individually strong and eventually freed from the 'Tatar' yoke such that they cooperate - with Polish, German and Scandinavian backing - to block the Golden Horde from simply moving back west and reconquering them, but also stops a unified Russian juggernaut from expanding eastwards like IOTL. This keeps a stalemate at the Don or Dnieper Rivers.
 
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Art Vandelay

Banned
Keep Ivan the Terrible from conquering Kazan. Muscovy loses independence during the Time of Troubles, but regains it during the Crisis of the 17th Century. Sweden remains the dominant power in Eastern Europe until Napoleon. Siberia is split between the Kazan Tartars and Qing Chinese.
 

Arkenfolm

I don't think it would be a prosperous nation since most likely scenario is a gunpowder empire Jochid state that would probably have an Ottoman-esque administration. It would probably be no more densely populated than OTL and an extractive economy (which IIRC at least some Russian expansion in Siberia inherited the same tribute networks for extracting yasak from natives). Poor transportation would be a problem, as would the multiethnic nature of the state (since you'd be forcing powerful groups like the Kazakhs to submit to some distant khagan whose center/interests lay in the Ob-Irtysh Basin).

Economy would be hindered by lack of good ports for export before Outer Manchuria can be conquered. Main ports would be on the Caspian as well as Mangazeya which is inaccessible most of the year so the nation is more or less landlocked. There'd be a real issue with the "resource curse" in the modern age, very likely much worse than modern Russia, since the economy would center on natural gas and oil to an even greater degree.
Apple3169 said:
PO: My personal opinion is, i personally think in this scenario Russia may live a bloody coup after several defeats on attempts of colonizing Siberia and expanding their territories. This even cause them to be more savage against the Western nations and the Ottoman Empire. May be the Bolshevik Revolution occur much faster. Considering Russia isn't large as it is in our scenario, this also will make them more visible during the Cold War era.
Click to expand...
Russia would still be larger than any other country in Europe and no doubt redirect its expansions south and east. It would be less successful though because of having such a major threat in their rear (who being a Sunni power, would ally with the Ottomans like Crimea and Kazan did). But I don't see why they would hae the Black Sea steppe but not have Ukraine, unless we're presuming Poland/Lithuania took it first and kept it. It's also worth noting that Russia has a huge amount of land available for internal colonisation, so they could still be a densely populated Eastern European powerhouse, just with the problem of lacking the strategic depth that was so useful against Napoleon and Hitler.
LostInNewDelhi said:
It would help if Manchuria (as much of the Amur basin as possible) was attached to it. The blue blob in your map doesn't have an agricultural area of the same stature.
Click to expand...
Irrigation in Central Asia could grow a huge amount of grain were the land not being used for cotton. Indeed, throughout history it was pretty productive. And much of the Kazakhstan/Russia border (continuing somewhat to the east) has chernozem and other soil related to that found in the Canadian Prairies. Currently Kazakhstan is a major exporter of wheat and other crops (largest producer of flax in the world). So the southeastern part of the country on the map would be a major agricultural producer. Probably the northern area would be used for grain, potatoes, and flax, the southern area would mostly be cotton (hopefully more sustainable than OTL since losing the Aral Sea sucks, but industrialising nations don't tend to treat their natural resources well) and fruit but still have plenty of grain/potatoes since Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc. produce a lot of that too.

Between that and the likely sizable herds of sheep, a textile industry would be a good choice for industrialisation. Central Asia has a decent amount of coal, although the biggest coalfield in that region IIRC is the Kuzbass.
 
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