How did Russia conquer so much territory?

[Medieval Lord 10]

russian so bigger like monster map in the globe. how they manage to conquer all province they have, and when? that was amazing and mistery one.

[Earl of Rochester]

With the collapse of the Mongolian Khanates you had a lot of steppe land that was marginally populated. The Russians filled this void conquering small tribe after small tribe until they ruled most of the Eurasian steppes.

This process really started with Tsar Ivan the Terrible and picked up steam after the times of troubles and the Romanov dynasty.

[Shaun]

Moved to the VV, its more suited to this forum.

[hellheaven1987]

Divide and conquer, the most simple way!

[Medieval Lord 10]

hmm i understand that now.. and i can see why china not moved like russian because the mongolian i see.. thank guys.

[LSJ]

The expansion of Russia was just like that of the USA and Canada. The lands they conquered were sparsely populated with small tribes that could not hope to put up a fight. The armies of Russia were larger than the population of the entire tribes they would fight.

They basically went unhindered and could cover massive distances without trouble. Each of those nations only had problems in rare cases when the tribes managed to unite. But even then the Russians/Americans/British had cannons, guns, and forts while the Natives had bows, axes, and a few muskets. So it was not really a challenge, or a mystery how they conquered that vast area.

The reason people go crazy about Alexander and Rome rather than Russia is that they conquered areas like Greece and Persia, which are densely populated and had about equal technology and manpower.

[redirflow]

At first, the Russian sent diplomats to the other nations for trade purpose. Latter, they built a very long railways to link from the west side (Europe) to the east side (Asia). Then, they sent their armies by trains to every city near to the railways. At last, they declared that land belong to them.

[shylence]

So if i rasied a mercenary army i could effectivly take over Siberia with little resistance...Intresting.

[Sher Khan]

Except, you know, Russia is already there. You'll have to contend with them as well.

[joerd9]

Besides, half of the territory you see on the map is Taiga or Tundra with hardly anyone living there at all...

[shylence]

I could take them.. And sparse Tundra is exactly what i need... Yes Then it is settled then I will Raise and Army and march on Yakutsk For Saint Camilus!!!

[Pavlik the Rus]

2Earl of Rochester

With the collapse of the Mongolian Khanates you had a lot of steppe land that was marginally populated. The Russians filled this void conquering small tribe after small tribe until they ruled most of the Eurasian steppes.

Well, not quite. Yes, Russian principalities was separated in different dominions, as a result of horible disaster - Mongol invasion in 13 century. A lot of them was subdued by Poland and Litva (Modern Ukraine and Belarus mainly). Other part was a vassals of Golden Horde (Including the Vladimir-Suzdal' principality, the small defencive fortress of this principality was named as Moscow). Also there was independent Novgorod principality.
Horde was not quite mongolian, more correct will be to name it as a Tatars.
Young Moscow principality defeated others principalities (including Novgorod).

This process really started with Tsar Ivan the Terrible and picked up steam after the times of troubles and the Romanov dynasty.

No, that process was began before Ivan IV. He defeated Tatarian Kazan' and Astrakhan' khanates. From that time Russia exists as a state. But process of uniting/conquering was began earlier than Ivan IV. First real atep was a Kulikovo field battle in 1470.

hmm i understand that now.. and i can see why china not moved like russian because the mongolian i see.. thank guys.

No, both China and Russia suffered from mongols. Here is one big difference.
We never was colonized and finnaly we was united.

2DarkProphet

The expansion of Russia was just like that of the USA and Canada. The lands they conquered were sparsely populated with small tribes that could not hope to put up a fight. The armies of Russia were larger than the population of the entire tribes they would fight.

And again - NO.
Expansion of Russia absolutly different from US and Canadian. Native was destroeyd there mainly, few survived. But here everything is absolutly different.
Best illustration is a conquering of western part of Siberia in the times of Ivan IV. There was strong state. A Horde of Chingizids. They supress local population. ANd really small unit of Russian cossacks under ataman Ermak Timofeevich (few hundreds of men) managed to conquer that huge lands, defeate army of Khan Kuchum. There was two reasons why they was so succesful. First - using a gunpowder and unknown by Kuchum's forces tactics, second - huge support of local tribes,subdued by chingizids, they svear to "white prince". That tribes still live there, they have their religion, language e.t.c. No one force them to any reservations or something like that.
So the difference is really big between us and US.
Sure there was a wars, but they was not in huge scale and never was so brutal like colonial wars in other parts of the world.

[Khan Kong]

Very soon, the national region where I live will celebrate 450 years of voluntary joining to Russia. Not a drop of blood was shed for this.

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

Russia expanded in Asia during the colonial era. While the British were consolidating their hold on India, the Russians took to the open steppes where, with gunpowder, they over-came the weak local kings and leaders of the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens, Kazhaks, Azeris, etc. The Russians, during the 19th century, wanted to take over Afghanistan as well but with Britain controlling India, it was in the interest of both Russia and Britain that Afghanistan serve as a buffer state between the two powers.

Therefore, Russia expanded into Central Asia mostly unopposed for the following reasons:

- There was very little competition from other European colonial powers in that region because of the low terrain size to economic yield ratio.

- After years of wars, empires, warlords (Tamerlane, Mahmud of Ghazni, the Mongols, etc), the Central Asian kings had become weak and they had almost no modern army.

[joerd9]

I could take them.. And sparse Tundra is exactly what i need... Yes Then it is settled then I will Raise and Army and march on Yakutsk For Saint Camilus!!!

An army of what? Armoured Reindeer Cavalry?

@topic: I don't know for sure but I seem to remember seeing a documentary about the acquisition of Siberia that took place using mostly surveyors and prospectors instead of armys. With some guy finally painting the big map in Moscow in whatever colour Russia used at that time.

[zedestroyer]

The reason people go crazy about Alexander and Rome rather than Russia is that they conquered areas like Greece and Persia, which are densely populated and had about equal technology and manpower.

Greece was already conquered by Philip II and Persia had superior manpower over Greece, but they used inferior technology (they had advanced technology, but the majority of the army did not had access to it) and their armies were just a huge mob of bad trained and equipped slaves with few well trained and equipped units.
So the Russian campaign was like Alexander campaign, they did not had superior manpower, they were just better organized and had better troops and used superior technology.
The ones that conquered superior enemies were the Romans, is because of this that I admire them.
But Russia also resisted against several major invasions and had some great wars, if I´m not mistaken. It was not a sea of roses like are being described in this thread, Russians fought hard for their future lands.

[LSJ]

And again - NO.
Expansion of Russia absolutly different from US and Canadian. Native was destroeyd there mainly, few survived. But here everything is absolutly different.

What I mean by the American, British, and Russian expansion being similar is that for most of the expansion when they fought battles they fought small native tribes in sparsely populated areas, and that most of the land they conquered was inhabited by tribes rather than cities. That is all I mean to say.
Of course, Russia did fight organized enemies, especially in the south, and in the earlier years, but I am referring to their expansion into Siberia (which makes up the majority of the land in Russia).

[Manuel Komnenos]

The most great ''conquests'' began in the time of Alexei Romanov(to Amur), but apogee of expansion was the reign of Peter I the Great and Katherine the Great.
In Peter time the eastern endpoint of Russian Empire was finally discovered(the endpoint of Euroasia) by great dutch explorer Vitus Bering. Immagine the endpoint of the Empire was unknown to the 1728!!!!!! Bering also established Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, and discovered Alaska! Peter and Catherine also conquered great parts in Europe to the damage of Poland, Sweden and Ottoman Empire.

[Il-Principe]

What I mean by the American, British, and Russian expansion being similar is that for most of the expansion when they fought battles they fought small native tribes in sparsely populated areas, and that most of the land they conquered was inhabited by tribes rather than cities. That is all I mean to say.
Of course, Russia did fight organized enemies, especially in the south, and in the earlier years, but I am referring to their expansion into Siberia (which makes up the majority of the land in Russia).

Indeed please make the distinction between the conquest of Siberia and the conquest of the Steppe. The Steppe kingdoms/khanates were rather organized and put upin some cases a very heavy fight. Also compared to Europe these regions were not so much populated. In Siberia you had a somewhat different situation. There were only a few underdeveloped tribes with even less people. And indeed the conquest of Siberia was often compared with the American conquest. The difference was not so much that the Russian conquest was rather peaceful, that's surely just propaganda, but that Siberia was extremely unpopular, while millions of white settlers moved west hoping to grab land. So the Russian gouvernment had to send unwilling troops and settlers there. Keep in mind that many convicts were deported to Siberia to 1) get rid of dangerous people and 2)to boost Siberia's population. From that point of view Siberia can be compared with Australia. After the tsars were overthrown, the communists continued wuth practise and even expanded it very much. Especially Stalin deported whole peoples to Siberia.

[Hjalmar]

Greece was already conquered by Philip II and Persia had superior manpower over Greece, but they used inferior technology (they had advanced technology, but the majority of the army did not had access to it) and their armies were just a huge mob of bad trained and equipped slaves with few well trained and equipped units.
So the Russian campaign was like Alexander campaign, they did not had superior manpower, they were just better organized and had better troops and used superior technology.
The ones that conquered superior enemies were the Romans, is because of this that I admire them.
But Russia also resisted against several major invasions and had some great wars, if I´m not mistaken. It was not a sea of roses like are being described in this thread, Russians fought hard for their future lands.

Keep in mind that the character of that Persian army had been working for them, most of the time, basically for centuries. What's reflected in Alexander's invasion is exactly just how much more powerful their relatively new model of army was. It isn't like this was the first time any Hellene had ever tried to campaign in Persian Anatolia.