Russian colonial empire in the 16th century?

[Cicero the Younger]

Something I've been thinking about recently that I was inspired by the Europe-only Russia thread to post about. This seemed like it would constitute a hijack of that thread, so I'm giving it its own thread.

See, I always wondered what compelled the Russians to move east into a land so nearly useless that even the Mongols and all the incarnations of the Chinese Empire spent centuries just flat out ignoring it.

I'll grant that Ivan IV is too early for the Westward-looking reforms of Peter the Great and the "Europeanizing" of Russia, and that may be the fatal flaw in this thought. But I couldn't help noticing that his reign took place during the period when Spain was grabbing New World territories and before England or France made any serious attempts to settle North America. I wonder whether Ivan, or a successor, could have been persuaded somehow to cross the ocean instead of the Urals. I don't know that they'd have any use for tobacco or sugar plantations, and they'd be too late to nab Aztec or Inca gold. But is it ASB for them to settle the St. Lawrence and Rupert's Land?

I mean, the main draw of that area was fur, which was exactly what led the Russian Empire in later centuries to settle Alaska in OTL. But it's a lot closer to Moscow than Alaska is (not to mention St. Petersburg, if Peter or someone else still puts a new capital there later). Obviously Russia wouldn't get as big as it is in OTL (though, by European standards, even west-of-the-Urals Russia is still monstrously huge), but it occurs to me that they could get more wealth putting their empire in Canada rather than Siberia. They could also control the approaches to the Northwest Passage, if they'd care about that, and completely change the dynamic of English and French settlement later on. But is it plausible?

 

[Jester]

I know its going to sound ridiculously stupid but- Siberia can be reached by land. That was a big part of it- and you'll note that all Russian attempts at colonizing across the Atlantic failed.

 

[Andrelvis]

The main problem is that Russian ports aren't really suited for this, even in later years - both their ports in the Baltic and the Black Sea could be closed off with far, far more ease than those of the British, Spanish and etc. ever could.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Yeah, the difficulty is the Russian naval tradition (or lack thereof), and the difficulty of accessing the Atlantic itself. In the 16th century Russia had virtually no access to the sea, except via the White Sea (obviously unsuitable for supporting colonies) or the Baltic, which was of course controlled by the Swedes and Danes, who I severely doubt would allow the Russians to colonize anywhere (similar to the position of the Italian states vis-a-vis Castille/Spain).

Even assuming this major issue could have been bypassed it would probably have been difficult to convince any of the tsars to support such a settlement due to their autocratic streak. It is revealing that the Muscowy Company was founded by English traders to venture to Russia, not the other way around.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I'll throw this out there -- how could Russia, before 1600, conquer the Laplands? And if they did, could they use access to the Norwegian Sea to send ships west? What would lead them to do so?

 

[Jester]

I'll throw this out there -- how could Russia, before 1600, conquer the Laplands? And if they did, could they use access to the Norwegian Sea to send ships west? What would lead them to do so?

Still wouldn't get them a warm water port, and the land route would be worse than that to Archangelsk.

 

[Cicero the Younger]

Would it have been plausible for Russia to take the Baltic states during this period? Riga could have served as its main port just as well as St. Petersburg would later do. Granted this still doesn't solve the problem of having routes blocked by the Swedes or Danes, but it's a start.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Siberia wasn't "useless" - it couldn't support very much, but there was a lot of money to be made from the fur-trade. As a matter of fact, the colonisation was done by Cossacks and general riff-raff commissioned by the fur-merchants, and state involvement was quite minimal early on.

As others have noted, there were massive difficulties in going to America which offset any advantage in profits that might have existed:Russia nowhere got its head into the open. For another things, serfdom was starting to solidify under Ivan. It wasn't in its final form yet by any means, but Russian peasants weren't all that mobile. There was movement - to the Kazan lands and to Sloboda Ukraine, which were nearer, surer prospects with good farmland to be tilled than some distant country nobody had ever heard of. Cossacks don't have any tradition of ocean voyaging either (Black Sea is another matter). Who do you send to America?

I think Russia could have just about gotten a friendly government in Riga if it was awfully fortunate during the Livonian War, but that doesn't resolve the more fundamental problems.

 

[abas]

Would it have been plausible for Russia to take the Baltic states during this period? Riga could have served as its main port just as well as St. Petersburg would later do. Granted this still doesn't solve the problem of having routes blocked by the Swedes or Danes, but it's a start.

They tried. Almost all second half of 16th century they spent in attempt to do that.