Warmer 16th century in Russia

Through my history class, I learned that Europeans did not colonize Russia because it was too cold for ports, and that the terrain was not suitable to replace the Silk Road of the Moslems. That is one of the reasons why they tried to sail to China/India. What if European and Asian Russia was warm and reachable enough for Western European nations to colonize. Part of the POD would keep Russia warm until suitable trans Russia railroads are built.
 
Aside from the massive implications for world events of such a warming (and the problems with terminology), it is unlikely to have the outcome you want. There was considerable trans-Siberian trade from China to Europe in the early seventeenth century, flowing through ports on the Arctic coast. Yet in the long run, the route could simply not compete with shipborne transport. It was not so much a climate as a political and economic question. around the same time the Central Asian slik route began dying and the ports were closed not because of the difficulty of reaching them, but by action of the Russian government which tried to monopolise the Siberian trade through Arkhangelsk. Evben with rail links open you don't get much of a benefit because a steamship via Suez is still cheaper per tonne than a slow train through Russia.

Also, I'm not sure what you meany by colonised. Large chunks of European Russia and al of Siberia *were* colonised by Europeans. that's why we have Russians all over the place where one Tartars, Ossetians, Ostyaks, Kamchadals, Samoyed, Nemtzi and a gazillion other tribal societies flourished. As to a Western colonisation of OTL Moscow/Muscovite Rus, I don't think that's feasibler militarily. Russia was a a technology disadvantage during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, but it was not a crippling one. Its armies functioned more or less on par weith the Ottoman ones in terms of quality, and those were not trivial. Its technological backwardness prevented it from projecting power the way European states at the time did, but it was hardly enough to make it an inviting target - on its own soil, it was an enemy to be taken seriously, as the Poles-Lithuanians and Swedes found out. If you mean whether Western powers could have taken away Siberia, that is IMO just about barely feasible if they had managed to keep Moscow weak. The Troubles are your best bet for this. Then, the maritime powers coulkd establish tributary relationships of their own with Siberian tribes through northern ports and start proxy conflicts. Of course it is still as likely as not to fail, but here a warmer climate could genuiely help. Russia without maritime muscle and with a longer navigable season in the Arctic could well be in four trouble.
 
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