Nizhny Novgorod wasn't on the frontier with Crimea, the former Tartar territories were. Also this major resettlement program didn't make the area that populated, especially Astrakhan.
You had been talking about Volga and Nizhny Novgorod is most definitely on Volga. Conversation about making area "that" populated vs. <whatever> populated does not make sense for the state with a total population lesser than one of the PLC.
Well if you use the word "settlement" and "colonization" to mean 2 completely different things, that's on you, I'm not here to argue semantics though.
I have no idea what you are here for but term "colonization" is more appropriate because it reflect the fact that these areas were not part of the Russian empire prior to the 1770's and had to be conquered first.
Why are you bringing the French in this? My point is just that the bulk of the "success" of Russia during this era happened fairly late even compared to England.
French are brought because you are taking something completely out of context. Britain during that period was successful in its colonial expansion while France was not, so why compare with the most successful player? However, the whole premise of your is faulty because Russian colonial expansion started in the XVI century on a huge scale and by the late XVII (well before the real colonial age started for Britain) it reached Pacific coast and in the early XVIII further expanded into America (Alaska).
Siberia was thinly populated, that's my point. Also the Kazakh Horde was a thorn on the side during this period.
Sorry, but both points are silly. Siberia is thinly populated even now because most of its territory is uninhabitable (and, BTW, a big part of "Siberia" is not actually geographic Siberia but Russian Far east) due to the severe climate. Then, taking into an account that until end of the XIX century density of the population even in European Russia was not too high and that the same goes for the indigenous people of Siberia, the argument is rather irrelevant.
BTW, by the time of the American Revolution, the 13 colonies in general had been rather thinly populated (and big spaces between East and West coasts are not densely populated even now). The same goes for Canada and Australia (which by 1788 amounted mostly to the population of a penal colony) so what's your point? The main difference was that the Brits managed to conquer India with the existing huge population.
Kazakhs were a nuisance but not a critical one: they did not prevent colonization of the rest of the Central Asia. For comparison, the Brits had been facing a LOT of similar "thorns in the side" and part of today's Pakistan is still quite wild. And Afghanistan probably does not require any comments. So should we disqualify British colonial success?
I'm not sure how that counters my point, it doesn't change the fact that taking over all this Siberian land wasn't some sort of big success relatively speaking.
Well, your ideas about what is and what is not representing a big success are, of course, interesting but I'm afraid that they aren't universally shared: huge size of the Russian empire was considered an important thing since XVIII century.
Moscow was barely in the top 10 city in 1700 and didn't grow significantly until the late 18th century and St.Petersburg became significant also after the mid 18th century.
Of course, it would be nice to get the numbers but as a measure of "success" they are not very relevant: urbanization is hardly the only or main criteria of country's success, otherwise the most successful country is Vatican: 100% of its population live in a single city.
Russia still had 2 to 3 times the population of England and yet its main city was many times smaller throughout this period.
And territory of Russia was bigger than one of England how many times? It simply does not make sense to compare densities of their population but, anyway, London was somewhat unique in Europe in the terms of percentage of country's population living there.
The British colonies in America up to 1750 didn't have enough population to skew things significantly, London had the same population as the Thirteen colonies up to 1720-1740 or so.
Which means that using population of Siberia as a criteria does not make sense. However, speaking about "skewing things significantly", these underpopulated colonies did manage to "skew" things by launching in 1765 a successful rebellion which the Britain could not defeat. So perhaps, besides population of country's capital, military power also was an important criteria.
Also I didn't say success was strictly defined by those 2 things, but they are 2 relatively easy to compare metrics.
If something is easy to compare (especially compare superficially) it does not automatically mean that it means to much.
What I know is that Astrakhan was fairly depopulated,
It was depopulated when? In 1569 it was important enough for a failed Ottoman attempt to capture it. By the early XVII century most of the Russian cities (except for Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod and few other places) had been seriously depopulated due to few years of famine followed by the Time of Troubles. "In the 17th century, the city was developed as a Russian gate to the Orient. Many merchants from
Armenia,
Safavid Persia,
Mughal India and
Khiva khanate settled in the town, giving it a cosmopolitan character." In 1719 it was plundered by the
Safavid Persians; and in 1830,
cholera killed much of the populace. Every time it was going back as an important trade center.
as were most territories bordering the Crimean Khanate, the Russian had to slowly push the frontier south by building lines of fortification, this lasted centuries since the fall of Astrakhan and the population of those areas wasn't that big up to the start of the Circassian war.
Of course, borders with the wild areas were not densely populated, just as the Wild West. But in the case of Crimean Khanate these border areas were quite small comparing to the total size of a country and almost as soon as Russia managed to deal with more pressing issues on its Western borders (you can check how many wars the Muscovite/Russian state had been fighting between mid-XVI century and 1770's), the Crimean Khanate was annexed, Circassian War started and lasted a century (growing into the Caucasian War) with the "thorns" being pushed beyond Kuban River and eventually the whole Caucasus being conquered. Pretty much the same processes as in the British colonial expansion out of India proper. So what's your point?
The northern half of Rusisa didn't grew as much as the South did, the population there double to quadrupled in the first half of the 19th century alone.
Not sure what constitutes the "the northern half of Rusisa": everything to the north of <whatever> parallel measured from Western border and to the Pacific coast? Yes, a big part of this territory is not populated even now. Of course, that "northern half" would amount to something like 80 - 90% of the territory. Part with a high growth of population was quite small.
As for the rest of your argument, if a have 1 item of something and then got 1 more, increase is 100%. But if I have 10 items and added 2 more, my growth rate is much lower. In other words, what you are saying, is pretty much useless as a measure of anything.
Physical size shouldn't matter to be honest.
Well, somehow it mattered when you brought British colonialism circa 1700 as an argument.
OK, here is something that everybody in Europe circa 1800 did recognize:
Russia Empire was a Great Power with a military power second only to the French Empire. By 1815, it was the greatest military (even if not naval) power in Europe. It was also a greatest producer of iron in the world. Not a bad thing for the country that in 1500 was something of a curiosity item for most of the Europeans. BTW, physical size was a part of the recognized criteria.