WI: No Russian

What if Ivan III wasn't successful in throwing off the Tatar Yoke? It seems like pure luck that the Nogay Horde attacked and routed the Golden Horde right before they invaded Moscow. Is this plausible and what effect would it have?
 
What if Ivan III wasn't successful in throwing off the Tatar Yoke? It seems like pure luck that the Nogay Horde attacked and routed the Golden Horde right before they invaded Moscow. Is this plausible and what effect would it have?

Thats far too late to work, and probably the Tatar yoke is Muscovite propaganda. The Russians and Mongols had a mutually exclusive relationship where they supported each other, hell the Muscovites even had influence on the Khanate of Kazan. By the time Ivan III was Grand Prince the Golden Horde was a shadow of it's former self anyway, and if we are talking late 1470's then there isn't much the horde could do.

If you want no Russia, or at least a single Russian state, have it so that the title of Prince of Vladimir rotates but never gets attached to one Russian principality like it did with Muscovy.
 

trurle

Banned
Alternative is to make the fledgling Russian state to disintegrate during the Time of Troubles around 1600-1610. It nearly disintegrated anyway.
As POD you can add just one of Tver scions surviving into the 1600 and making an alliance with Lithuanian nobles, so civil war in Russia will become more chaotic.

And i must agree what by the time of Great stand on the Ugra river (1480) the Golden Horde was a hopelessly backward state. Their technology and organization were outmatched even by Russians:(
 
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