How Did Russia Get So Big?

Special mention to my patrons: Richard, Jeseenya, Francis, Edward, Stephen, MiFE, Rpgkillerspace, Wilhelm, Roland, Rami, Juan, Bruno, Albert, Lastmatix, Kalvin, Francisco, Tom, 43rpak, Chet, Ryan Keith, ou_lyss, Borton, Ryan McMurry, Pete, Cesar, Hendrick.

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[gorilladisco]

Mongols : There's nothing there but trees and wolves.
Russians : It's free real estate.

[waldemartepper]

This is literally third video on exactly this topic that I got in my subscribtion page this month.

[T.h.w.T]

This is the first video in a long time in which you haven mentioned Portugal

[lAsteriosl]

Yes, you miss that Russians establish Fort Ross in 1812 in today's California, which is crazy to think of.

[CG-yqxy]

Russia: This list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it.

[Koala]

"How did Russia get so big?"

Because they had two number 9s, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45s, one with cheese, and a large vodka.

[Luboman]

At 7:45. Fun fact: some geologists believe that Russia's "Time of Troubles" was triggered by vast famines caused by very harsh winters and extremely short growing seasons caused by one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the past 2, 000 years--the massive blow-up of Huaynaputina. This is a huge volcano in southern Peru that exploded tremendous quantities of ash into the atmosphere in 1600, which blocked out the sun for a few years and led to a sudden cooling of the Earth's surface. This is manifested in very long and harsh winters. This eruption was larger than the far more famous one at Krakatoa in 1883. The Spanish had built a large settlement near this volcano, Arequipa, and this thriving colonial town was wiped off the face of the Earth by apocalyptic amounts of ash that had fallen on it, along with a large number of earthquakes that struck it one after the other. Some geologists also theorize that the Huaynaputina eruption triggered "The Little Ice Age" in Europe, China, Russia and North America in the early 1600s.

[goldensch]

Japan: The Kuril Islands have always been ours!
Russia: I don't understand what you're talking about, you only conquered them at the beginning of the 20th century

[barrel]

Kievan Rus is not the name of the country but a time period created later by historians. Moreover, Kiev was not the original capital of Rus - it was captured by Prince Oleg the Prophetic (regent of the son of Rurik) in 882 and only after the capital was moved to Kiev.

[thesenate]

1. The word "Rus'"comes from the word Rower, although it's still under debate. However, the tribe that conquered Southern Karelia, were mostly known as "Varyags" or varangians
2. Main part of the trade wasn't going on with local slavic population, but was going through the traderoads "From Varangians to Persians" and "From Varangians to Greeks". Expansion of the Arabian Califate made this traderoads very important, because The Silk Road and The Spice Road was blocked. This made important for the Varangians to control these territories, to build the infrastructure so the trade ships could safely go through the rivers of Volga and Dniepr, and eventually a government have appeared.
3. Ivan IV's nickname "The Terrible" comes from mistranslation of the word "Grozny", which means literally means "thunderous", or "menacing". He had a heavy character, and there were executions, like anywhere in Europe, but certainly not a remarkably big, and there were not much of reasons (besides oprichnina, of course) to call him The Terrible. Also, he was the first tzar, not the Vasily III, because on his coronation a byzantine ritual of anointing was performed, and the word tzar comes from "Caesar" directly. Just wanted to note it, a lot of people doesn't know it.
4. Pavel I (or Paul) wasn't actually so much of a diplomate. He only ruled for 5 years, during which Napoleon was thrashing Europe. Many reforms of Paul I were directly reforming russian military. He was a big fan of Friedrich II of Prussia, and he in many ways was using prussian methods of training the military.
5. A lot of information was missed with no mention of Crimean War. One of many reasons of this war was russian influence on local minorities and expansion towards the Balkans, as Russia, with Byzantine Empire long gone, proclaimed herself a defender of orthodox faith. Ottoman Empire, "the sick man of Europe", was not much of a threat anymore, but still was making the balance of power in the region of eastern mediterranean, but expansion of Russia in the Balkans could ruin it. So, in result of the Crimean War, the most part of expansion was stopped, only the influence by faith and support of bolgarian and greek rebels remained. Russia would be in only single war with Turks until WW1, in 1877-1878, with minor land additions to empire, partially because of it.
6. 7:03 omg this map is terrible
Just a minor additions to the video, GK, but still, the video is great, thank you!

[OldtimerOfSweden]

Alexander I didn't go to war against Finland. He went to war against Sweden and conquered the territory called Finland (renamed Grand Duchy of Finland by Alexander).

[MassEffectGER]

"How did Russia get so big?"
Mercator: "I didn't do it!"

[xjdfghashzkj]

8:38 "The False Dmitris" sounds like a no-wave group from the late 70's

[lyuvnslav]

This is getting out of hand, now there's two of them.

[cccpredarmy]

"How come Russia is the biggest country in the world today?"
Russian Empire by the end of 19th century: hold my pelmeni

[SeriyKayf]

How everything in this world is relative ...
Non-Russians, looking at a modern map, ask - how can Russia be so big? ... I, a Russian, looking at the same map, and remembering what Russia was just recently ... I ask myself, how can Russia be so small? ...

[Alec_]

It’s interesting how despite the collapse of both the Russian empire and subsequently the Soviet Union which resulted in massive Territorial losses, Russia managed to maintain its gargantuan size.

[Big_Double_The_Bear]

16:46 Your comment about war against Finland is not accurate. If you are referring to Finnish war of 1808-1809, it was between Russia and Sweden. Finland didn't exist as a sovereign nation back then.

[SU-vynb]

It basically came down to the same colonial race other European powers where involved in. but Russia went the land route east instead of seeking overseas colonies.

[SeregaKRYL]

It was not a council of nobles who elected the Michael Romanov - there were representatives from all the population including farmers.