Tsar Nicky II moves the Russian capital at the start of his reign

Samara isn't much further east than Kazan and is much less developed.

Vladivostok has the opposite problem--it's too far east. Too hard to coordinate between Vladivostok and the other Capital--be it Moscow or Peterburg--and too big of an invasion risk especially after 1905.
Agreed about Vladivostok.

Also, why was Samara much less developed than Kazan was?
 
Part of it is just that the city is smaller.

Part of it is that Kazan already has the main shipyards of the Caspian Fleet and so was more used to bureaucracy.

Part of it is that Kazan has a larger university so it's easier to find low- to mid-level bureaucrats.

Part of it is that Kazan is rapidly industrializing at the time.
 
He came to power in 1894. Russia apparently had a census in 1897. So going off that:

Siberia had less than 6 million people. Central Asia had ~ 8 million.

~ 63 million lived in the Russian heartland in the west. (Only borders of modern Russia included). In addition a further ~ 48 million lived in Russian owned Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, & Lithuania.

Basically 111 million in the West (overwhelmingly West of the Volga) compared to 14 million in the East.


People forget how truly abominable the weather is in almost all of Siberia. Humans are a tropical grassland species that's used cleverness to overcome climatic issues when needed, but we simply aren't built to like the Taiga. All things being equal we'd rather not be there. Being sent to Siberia was a punishment, not an opportunity.
 
He came to power in 1894. Russia apparently had a census in 1897. So going off that:

Siberia had less than 6 million people. Central Asia had ~ 8 million.

~ 63 million lived in the Russian heartland in the west. (Only borders of modern Russia included). In addition a further ~ 48 million lived in Russian owned Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, & Lithuania.

Basically 111 million in the West (overwhelmingly West of the Volga) compared to 14 million in the East.


People forget how truly abominable the weather is in almost all of Siberia. Humans are a tropical grassland species that's used cleverness to overcome climatic issues when needed, but we simply aren't built to like the Taiga. All things being equal we'd rather not be there. Being sent to Siberia was a punishment, not an opportunity.
Thanks for this data! Ofc, you forgot to mention the Russian Far East--not that it would have changed much!
 
They listed the Russian Far East in w Siberia if I'm reading right. Siberia was pretty much "everything East of the Urals in modern Russia".

The Trans Siberian Railroad and Soviet era migration changed the population matrix of the area. I'm not sold on this map being perfectly accurate as it doesn't tell when the data it uses was generated , but it's still a strong illustration of how the population in Russia is set up. It's still following the rail line in Siberia. You cab see how such vast swaths of the country have less than 2 people per square mile.
rusland-befolkning-kort.jpg
 
I don't see any point transport St. Petersburg further from other European nations without very good reason and even then probably just to Moscow. In geographic center of Russia even is not anything else than forest or just some small villages and there is hellish cold even for Russians. St. Petersburg was important center of diplomacy and economy. It just can't be transferred to another place. And building of new palaces and government buildings would be expensive. Not many nations build their capital to geographic center of their country. Or is there any such nation. But even if it is just coincidence. With that logic USA and Canada too should build their capital to center point of their nations. With USA it would be pretty intresting when it has expanded much during their history.
 
DC WAS built in the center of the original country. It's just the country kept moving West. If you include Hawai'i the center of the country now is possibly somewhere off the West Coast. :)

Brasilia in Brazil was built to be more central (& to expand the population out of Rio). Nyapyidaw (i know im butchering that spelling) in Burma is built to be central. I want to say Delhi (& by extension New Delhi) may actually have been originally built to be central? Equatorial Guinea is building a new central capital now in the middle of an otherwise empty jungle. Nigeria moved their capital to Abuja in the center of the country from Lagos in the SW, iirc. Ankara is central, and was moved to after the Ottoman Empire ended. Kazakhstan built Astana to be more Central.

That's the only ones I can think of that built or moved to a more Central location.
 
Spain also... Philip II choised to build Madrid for having a central city as capital of the united Spain instead of keep a travelling court like his father and grandparents had done (Barcelona was the capital of Aragon and Valladolid the capital of Castile, while Toledo was a sort of capital for the united kingdom before Madrid)
 
And the Russian Tsar didn't have what it takes to move Russia's capital somewhere else in order to create a Pan-Russian identity rather than a more Muscovite identity?
It's more that by this point Moscow was the largest city, quite central, had good communication routes along rivers and was defensable. The biggest reason for St Petersburg was Peter the Great's desire for a port on the Baltic, which was something Tsars had wanted for a while, and the Neva estuary is a really good place to build a Baltic port to service Russia. Being as there is bugger all people in Siberia, and there were even fewer then, I struggle to see any real reason to move the capital eastwards. European Russia was and remains the most important part of the country, with the vast majority of the population and economy, as well as being the cultural centre. It's a bit like asking why Britain didn't move its capital to Canada.
 
A lot of Russians settled in Siberia and Kazakhstan, though.

Why not build a large city in the wasteland like Nursultan Nazarbayev did for Kazakhstan when he wanted a new capital?
Moscow is still too far to the west for a great Eurasian empire, though.
To give you an idea, here is a Russian population map from 2010. Obviously it doesn’t include European lands (that had significant populations mind you) that were part of the Russian Empire in 19th century like Poland, Baltic states, Finland, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, etc.:

population-density-map.jpg


A Russian Tsar moving the capital to a “central” location because Russia is supposedly a “Eurasian Empire” would be like US deciding to move it’s capital to American Samoa to reflect America’s status as the “foremost power in the Pacific”
 
To give you an idea, here is a Russian population map from 2010. Obviously it doesn’t include European lands (that had significant populations mind you) that were part of the Russian Empire in 19th century like Poland, Baltic states, Finland, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, etc.:

population-density-map.jpg

It would be nice to see the exact mean center of population for Russia.

A Russian Tsar moving the capital to a “central” location because Russia is supposedly a “Eurasian Empire” would be like US deciding to move it’s capital to American Samoa to reflect America’s status as the “foremost power in the Pacific”

Denver might be a more fitting example for this.
 
It would be nice to see the exact mean center of population for Russia.
2018 Russia's mean center of population is in Udmurtia, south of Izhevsk.

BTW, D.I. Mendeleev (yes, the Mendeleev who made the Periodic Table) used the 1897 imperial census to find the Russian Empire's mean center of population and determined that it was in northeastern Tambov Province, less than 400 kilometers southeast of Moscow and around 530 kilometers southwest of Kazan. Moscow is the large city closest to the Empire's population center.
 
2018 Russia's mean center of population is in Udmurtia, south of Izhevsk.

BTW, D.I. Mendeleev (yes, the Mendeleev who made the Periodic Table) used the 1897 imperial census to find the Russian Empire's mean center of population and determined that it was in northeastern Tambov Province, less than 400 kilometers southeast of Moscow and around 530 kilometers southwest of Kazan. Moscow is the large city closest to the Empire's population center.
Where did you find all of this information?

Also, what about moving Russia's capital to Lipetsk? I tried following your coordinates and this is where a rough calculation landed me.
 
Where did you find all of this information?

Also, what about moving Russia's capital to Lipetsk? I tried following your coordinates and this is where a rough calculation landed me.
Again, the question is why? There's really not a good reason to move the capital to a small city not all that far from Moscow, maybe you could have something a bit like Versailles, but I'm pretty sure that even ancien régime France's government kept most of its bureaucracy in Paris for reasons of convenience. It's just a huge pain in the arse to run a country from a small city when there are bigger, more conveniently located ones available. Building St. Petersburg was a huge, expensive and time consuming endevour that did not make Peter popular. There was serious pressure after he died to move back to Moscow. The diplomatic convenience of a port on the Baltic was probably the main reason they stayed.
 
For Eurasian Empire feelings you'd probably want Alexander III. It's somewhat more plausible. Most of Russian elite considered themselves Europeans (there were of course slavophiles too, but they were not a mainstream).
Anyway, you'll need a very compelling reasons to move the capital like when Bolsheviks moved to Moscow after Petrograd become a border city (and too associated with the former establishment). Or you'll need a Tsar with iron hand and iron will like Peter I to move the capital because he likes it. The move would affect millions of people and most of them would be unhappy especially if the move is arbitrary. Nicky would not have the guts.
But it is possible for a slavophile Tsar to move his own residence to a city deeper in Russia or even build a new one without provoking too much of an outrage. With the deveopment of modern communications it may eventually become a new capital if he lives long enough or his successors like the place too.
Moving to Siberia is trickier, and before aviation it is too far to be realistic. Incidentally, I've read somewhere that Denis Diderot advised Catherine II that Ekaterinburg would be more logical place forthe Russian capital for the same reasons as OP :) I doubt that Catherine II ever considered it even if such talk happened in reality.
In more recent times moving to Siberia would be possible. It could be done to give boost to the region, make it more then resourse provider. There still would be needed a very determined state policy and a lot of money to pull it through.
 
Top