Largest possible Russia?

ingemann

Banned
Theorectic you could create a Russian-Danish Union, a marriage between Peter III's mother (the daughter of Peter the Great) and Christian VI was offered, but the Danes turned it down because of her questionable legitimacy. If the Danes had been smarter they would have taken the offer, and gotten Peter the Great support to annex Scania and Holstein-Gottorp. Later we could see a union between Denmark and Russia, which likely would have resulted in Sweden being annexed at some point. From that point it's relative easy for Russia to expand their position into North Germany later on.
 
If Russia is able to annex Northern Persia, then Persia has basically fallen apart, after which it should be possible to either annex or puppetify the East.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Why, it's nowhere near the cultural core of Russia, St. Petersburg is already well-established as capital, and Moscow is already considered Third Rome, the Russian population is nil.
 
I can't see Moscow hanging on to California for very long. That's ripe for an independence movement right there.
 
Why, it's nowhere near the cultural core of Russia, St. Petersburg is already well-established as capital, and Moscow is already considered Third Rome, the Russian population is nil.

Because it's the Queen of Cities and the Heart of Orthodoxy
 
Because it's the Queen of Cities and the Heart of Orthodoxy

Even so, I think present political exigencies would probably take precedence; the mere effort of moving the capital alone would be massive, if only because it would require completely rebuilding the civil infrastructure built up in St. Petersburg and Moscow (by comparison; even twenty years after re-unification, Germany still maintains many of its government departments in Bonn, and that was to a city with the same language, over a far shorter distance).
 
Even so, I think present political exigencies would probably take precedence; the mere effort of moving the capital alone would be massive, if only because it would require completely rebuilding the civil infrastructure built up in St. Petersburg and Moscow (by comparison; even twenty years after re-unification, Germany still maintains many of its government departments in Bonn, and that was to a city with the same language, over a far shorter distance).

There's not even a set date for the POD so why are you assuming that St Petersburg even exists.
 
Replace every mention of St. Petersburg with Moscow then.

There was a reason why they moved the capital anyway. If St. Petersburg hadn't been built and with the POD Constantinople were captured far earlier than I don't see a problem with the Tsar moving the capital to Constantinople when the Czardom of Russia becomes the Empire of All Russia.
 
There was a reason why they moved the capital anyway. If St. Petersburg hadn't been built and with the POD Constantinople were captured far earlier than I don't see a problem with the Tsar moving the capital to Constantinople when the Czardom of Russia becomes the Empire of All Russia.

What about the part where Constantinople is geographically isolated from the rest of Russia, particularly the cultural core of Russia, which also introduces the problem of Constantinople being in a location not conducive to central government, or the exigencies of adapting as capital a city where the population is totally non-Russian, instead of an empty city awaiting settlers (forced or otherwise), or the fact that in any period where moving a capital was feasible because it meant that local lords would have to reroute taxes and messages instead of having to totally rebuild civil infrastructure, Constantinople was held by powers whose strength made a Russian conquest totally ASB?
 
What about the part where Constantinople is geographically isolated from the rest of Russia, particularly the cultural core of Russia, which also introduces the problem of Constantinople being in a location not conducive to central government, or the exigencies of adapting as capital a city where the population is totally non-Russian, instead of an empty city awaiting settlers (forced or otherwise), or the fact that in any period where moving a capital was feasible because it meant that local lords would have to reroute taxes and messages instead of having to totally rebuild civil infrastructure, Constantinople was held by powers whose strength made a Russian conquest totally ASB?

Well, Petrograd was built on a swamp away from the cultural core of Russia so I fail to see the point in that argument since Russia already did a lot of what you are using as an argument against Constantinople. Furthermore, like I said, there is NO SET POD for this question. For all intents and purposes maybe Kievan Rus stays unified and the ruling dynasty directs their attention southward. Seriously the TURKS CAME FROM CENTRAL ASIA and ended up taking Constantinople so don't argue Russian conquest as friggin ASB.
 

katchen

Banned
If Semyon Dezhnev had crossed the Bering Strait in 1654 and discovered Alaska then, Russia would have been well on the way to taking over a huge portion of North America--perhaps the North all the way to Hudson's Bay. The cossack method of occupying new territory was in some ways, much more effective than a joint stock company 120 years later. Dezhnev could have discoverd that the Kobuk Innuit were far more friendly than the Chukchi, gone up the Kobuk looking for more furs (which Alaska has in aboundance) to portage to the Koyakuk and then the Yukon. Someone else would travel down the Yukon to it's mouth and then up to the Porcupine River and portage from the Porcupine to the Deh Cho (Mackenzie). Then up the Deh to what we call Great Slave Lake and then the Smith River and from here, Lake Atabasca, Cochrane and Beaver to the Churchill and Hudson's Bay. Easier than getting from the Lena to the Kobuk, actually.
Then follow the mainstream of the Yukon to the Liard and up the Liard, down the Ketchika, up the Peace, up the Fraser, then either up or down the Columbia, and reach either the mouth of the Columbia or cross the mountains to the Missouri. Then across the Great Plains, meeting the French somewhere between St. Louis and the Great Lakes depending on how long it takes to explore across North America. Estabish a yasak system and missionaries and that's how the Russians take over much of the American West by at least 1800.
 
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