WI No Russian Siberia?

Ran Exilis

Inspired by the recently resurrected thread about carving up China and Siberia.

..
The question is quite simple: what if the Russian Empire for some reason had never expanded much beyond the Ural (let's say that it never gains a territory in Asia that is bigger than European Russia at most), how would Siberia have developed, and how would that affect history?
 

Tyr

Not very well I'd imagine...Just look at Central Asia: most of which managed to avoid Russian rule until the 19th century.
Don't know enough on Sibir to really comment heavily though...I don't think there'd be anyone here who does ( though prove me wrong please)
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Stalker, maybe.

If Russia wasn't interested, there are only China, later Japan and the various Inner Asian steppe people.
 

Communist Wizard

Well, lesee. This is preety hard to do so, as Siberia is basically an empty land waiting to get filled... with Russians, who are preety close to Siberia. Well, the Russians might be pre-occupied with handling shiny new Anatolians/Persian/ME territories :D .Central Asia isn't going to be Russian, probably as well. Britain and India might project influence to CA, though I doubt they'll get as far as Siberia. Eastern Siberia might as well be a Mongolian/Chinese/Japanese influenced region, but it's hard to see the Western Siberian territories being not influenced by Russia...
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Forgot something: If you remove Genghis Khan, it *could be* that the Russians are stopped by the Volga Bulgarians/Hungarians, or otherwise don't got as far east, because they don't have bad memories about Genghis and don't fear that somewhere in the steppes another Genghis was growing up.
 

Ran Exilis

Well IIRC, the Volga Bulgarians were already not doing very well againest the Russians before the Mongols came,
and I doubt wether they would be strong enough to stop the Russian advance on the long run.

However, Communist Wizard does have a good point about that the Russians may not be so interested
in the desolate steppes, forests and tundra's of Siberia if they have any success in conquering Anatolia
or other interesting parts of the Middle East.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Anatolia? Then they had at first to conquer the Ukrainian steppes where the Kumans / Polovtzer lived, then today's Romania, then Bulgaria... you understand?
 

Iñaki

Another form of made this is neutralizing Russia as important independent power.

Make the Time of Troubles of 1601-13 far more negative for the russians, made the false Demetrius defeat Boris Godunov in 1603 and with polish assistance he manages to remain in power, the polish succeeds in neutralizing a possible swedish help to Russia, when the Time of Troubles end in this ATL, Russia is in fact some kind of polish semi-protectorate through a new line of tsars based in the false Demetrius (naturally the polish annexes Smolensk and another areas), so with Russia as some kind of vassal state of the polish, there is no reason for a continuation of the politic of expanding into Siberia.
 

Homer

If Russia never delelops a centralized state, there might be only small border kingdoms expanding eastwards and some traders, yet no organized conquest.

I think Siberia would end up being more or less independent under Chinese overlordship, and the same would be true for most parts of Inner Asia. I doubt if the British would be able to establish an inner Asian colonial Empire from India through Kashmir and Afghanistan. Thus today China would be significantly larger than OTL.
 

Wendell

If we go with no Mongol incursions, then there may not be a Russia as we know it. More importantly, Khazaria might have become an analogue to Russia IOTL and could grow to include everything from Astrakhan to Vladivostok:D
 

Ran Exilis

Hmm.....a Khazar-dominated (western) Siberia...

Though, interesting as that may sound, the Khazar empire was destroyed by Kievan Rus' in the 10th century, and after that, the area gradually became dominated by the Kievan Rus', Volga Bulgarians, and later the Kipchak, so a Khazar-dominated Siberia would require a POD that is a lot earlier than the Mongol invasions...
 

Soyuz

Iñaki said:
Another form of made this is neutralizing Russia as important independent power.

Make the Time of Troubles of 1601-13 far more negative for the russians, made the false Demetrius defeat Boris Godunov in 1603 and with polish assistance he manages to remain in power, the polish succeeds in neutralizing a possible swedish help to Russia, when the Time of Troubles end in this ATL, Russia is in fact some kind of polish semi-protectorate through a new line of tsars based in the false Demetrius (naturally the polish annexes Smolensk and another areas), so with Russia as some kind of vassal state of the polish, there is no reason for a continuation of the politic of expanding into Siberia.
Click to expand...

Even that is too late. Yermak had already infiltrated Siberia in 1580 and conquered the Siberian Khanate. By the time you're talking about, they were already at Enisey.

No, you would have to destroy Russia completely to stop it from expanding eastward. So that would be before unification (around XIV century)
 

Wendell

Ran Exilis said:
Hmm.....a Khazar-dominated (western) Siberia...

Though, interesting as that may sound, the Khazar empire was destroyed by Kievan Rus' in the 10th century, and after that, the area gradually became dominated by the Kievan Rus', Volga Bulgarians, and later the Kipchak, so a Khazar-dominated Siberia would require a POD that is a lot earlier than the Mongol invasions...
Click to expand...

My suggestion would probably invoplve stronger ties between Constantinople and Khazaria. Or, even that Khazaria races a reduction in power, and then a later revival. Either way, it's an interesting idea that is difficult to achieve.
 
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