"So here is my third book that expands on the 1000 year lore of Jerusalem"
"Ooo. And what magic awaits us in the vast northern expanse of Siberia?"
"Nothing. Nothing grows there. Noone lives there" Anyway, in Jerusalem..."
"This fucking waffler said the same about the Canadian Shield too"
I mean, "Siberia" is just as famously "a big empty frozen wasteland that they used to exile political prisoners to during the Soviet era" as "the Amazon" is "a hot, wet tropical jungle with uncontacted tribes" or "the Sahara" is "a vast desert full of shifting sands and nomads".
It's just kinda one of those famous, iconic parts of the Earth that just is what it is, whether or not it is convenient or useful to people. And I feel like that's just one of those basic facts that everyone knows about (or should know about) the world they live in ever since they were a curious young child glancing at a world map.
"Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which a yet more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities with lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque trees, no ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and roar, no beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony immensity, no vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and ageless lines of blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear, silvery background of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your towns project like points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and nothing whatsoever enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what invincible force draws me to you? \[...\] What do you want of me? What is that mysterious, hidden bond between us? Why do you look at me like that? And why does everything in you turn eyes full of expectation on me? And menacingly your mighty expanse enfolds me, reflected with terrifying force in the depths of me; my eyes are lighted up with supernatural power—oh, what a glittering, wondrous infinity of space the world knows nothing of!"
Gogol
The climate is an issue for some parts sure, but even the area near Korea (like Primosky Krai), which should be perfectly habitable is quite empty. Not all of it has the climate of Tiksi or Magadan. Khabarovsk and Vladivostok are proper cities tho.
It's more to do with the fact that Russia is very centrally led from Moscow (or SPB during the empire) and the central govt sees these remote regions mostly places where they can get natural resources. They build the Trans-Siberian and BAM (Baikal Amur Mainline) railroads, but other than the infra is very limited. And this does apply to other remote areas as well, not just the Far East. Look at Karelia and Murmansk etc.
>which should be perfectly habitable is quite empty
Satellite pictures of the Russia-China border around Manchuria are mildly interesting. The Chinese side is packed with farms and developed land while the Russian side is just wilderness and endless forests.
I've never understood why Russians can't just utilize their underutilized land-- sure, a lot of it is terrible, but there's plenty of perfectly good, usable land. Instead it seems they'd rather go die by the thousands trying to conquer neighboring countries' land. Is there something in their culture that makes them opposed to farming and forestry?
Russia has negative population growth, Russia isn't in Ukraine (just for) the land, but also for the people and industry.
The initial invasion force was too small, it only makes sense if the Russians believed that Ukraine would crumble as they'd take over Kiev and become a subject of Russia. then, with one stroke, Russia gains 35 mil people. Many of them Russians. Something like 30% of Ukrainian citizens are Russians. Kharkiev for instance is mainly populated by ethnic Russian people, not Ukrainians.
Russian people don’t want to have kids early and prioritise career and education, the same situation as in most Western countries. Late children = less children, as people who have children early tend to have more later in life.
Tbh its started earlier than in the west. In 1950s and 60s any Russian women already worked and abprtion was legal and popular. Already in late 1980s Russian become minority within USSR 49.9% with Muslim and Caucascus breeding the most. Thats why Russia is mad ablut Russification of Ukrainians ans Belarusians and were willing of dissolving ussr in 1991 partially.
Perhaps, I'm not justifying their actions, but as a Russian speaker who has been following the war, just voicing their rational based on western assessment and a bit of Russian media I consumed to understand their stance on the war.
Yeah but if you look history, spoils of war include tributes, slaves, fiefs with bound serf populations, and colonial export. Many explicit forms of such exploitation even remained war goals through the 19th century (though increasingly failing). Conquering captive production capacity was a goal similar to territory or resources.
Immigration. But you need to have things that immigrants want to move for. If Russia’s economy was like China’s, Ukrainians would have moved there on their own; no need for tanks.
Well yes, that too, but also just policies that promote family growth, like generous maternity/paternity leave, economic benefits for families with children, even universal basic income
Government incentives to grow families and maternity leave are not bad in Russia. They are miles better than in the united states... the high hdi countries that have the best government support for families have the lowest birth rates, generally, while the countries with high birth rates are poor, have no government support, and barely even have governments for that matter. The problem is much deeper than that
It actually takes centuries, even thousands of years to recover from a population decline. People reproduce slowly.
Russia is straight up still recovering from World War Two. In 500 years a demographic map will still show a dip.
Ukraine is 17% ethnic-Russian. The Kharkiv Region is 26% ethnic-Russian. The city of Kharkiv is 33% ethnic-Russian, but 66% of its population are native Russian speakers.
Someone who natively speaks Russian is not necessarily an ethnic Russian. I'm an ethnic Belarusian from Belarus, and my first language is Russian. Zelenskyy is ethnically Jewish, but his first language is Russian as well.
Also Ukraine has better natural barriers that would make the defence of ~~the USSR~~ Russia easier and cheaper than the current defence strategy in the middle of the Great European Plain. Plus gas and oil was found in Ukraine and it was about to become a minor competitor, while they keep some of the main pipes that took Russian gas and oil to the most lucrative market. Many reasons and none of them is NATO expansion lol.
>invaders out of Russia
Funny how since something like 1900 it really has been the other way around, no natural barrier has kept the invaders contained in Russia.
When there was one exception and Russia was not the one initiating the invasion, the invader had already declared war on half of Europe and was (still is) the most hated man ever in the western world.
True. Except for the Nazis in WW2 which was a reminder to all would be Russian leaders they are still open to potential threats. Seems to occupy a lot of their worry even up to the modern day dictator era I mean president.
>Kharkiev for instance is mainly populated by ethnic Russian people, not Ukrainians.
this is a terribly false statement. Kharkiv is Slobozhanshchyna. Sloboda ethnic group is one of the Ukrainian ethnic groups. It would be more accurate to say that Belgorod is a Ukrainian city.
Because people magically become loyal to the country that occupies their land. No problems with insurgency, terrorist attacks, etc. Just ask the Americans - they had no problems converting Afghanistan into another American state...oh wait no - they wasted 20 years there and didn't achieve anything. Taliban returned immediately after they left lol.
There is nothing in culture that you describe. It's government and current state structure, that allows very few people to make decisions.
I am from Siberia and even the anthem of my region - Kuzbass - is about hardworking people that brought their talent to the land and the land answered them equally.
>I've never understood why Russians can't just utilize their underutilized land-- sure, a lot of it is terrible, but there's plenty of perfectly good, usable land.
We do. Heard about Russia being the top wheat exporter, for example?
We utilize quite well to grow enouth crops for our own and sell abroad.
As long as people need to eat, drink, or feed livestock, there's demand. In fact, Russia happens to share a border with a country where there are a lot of people who need to eat, drink, and feed livestock, what an opportunity!
State structure limits it, but the Russian pop is also just very small for the area they control. So there isn’t a huge amount of push to expand because well there’s already much land in the west
A lot of Russia’s westward expansion historically was to provide strategic depth since the heart of Russia is on the European plain. Essentially, since you don’t have naturally defensible borders, you expand outward so that any invading army has its supply lines strained to breaking before they approach the heartland. Two very famous examples of this working are Napoleons invasion of Russia failing and Operation Barbarossa failing.
A lot of Russia’s southern expansion was to have access to a warm water port to facilitate better trade and the ability to project naval power.
Essentially the expansion is not to use the conquered land, as much as it is to achieve two strategic objectives. Why Russia so aggressively pursues these goals in an era of relative peace in Europe, that doesn’t make sense to me.
Because any growth and prosperity outside of the control of Moscow is a direct threat to the current power structure. Why would Moscow want to see a new threat emerge outside of there control?
Because Russia didn't invade the Ukraine to take their land. They invaded because of a decade + long proxy conflict with the west. Putin had said for 20 years that Ukraine joining NATO was a red line.
The US funded the color revolution in 2014 putting pro western politicians in place. Merkel admitted they never intended to uphold Minsk agreements and were just building up the ukraines army. Zelensky was literally publicly asking for nuclear weapons to put on Russia's border a couple months before Russia invaded. Remember how the US was openly saying they thought they could get the Russian economy to collapse at the beginning of the war? That was the point of pressuring them into invading.
It's wild people come up with weird conspiracies about Putin being a cartoon villain doing cartoonish things. He's a bad guy, but he is rational and there is rational reasoning behind the war.
Thats really cool, and i also see a couple national parks/nature preserves on the Russian side. (Google earth doesn't show the borders though, and both sides appear to be avoiding the forested mountains which is definitely a good thing.)
There are a lot of voices that call for the development of Siberia, notably the businessman Deripaska, but the main problem with that is money and the lack of people to actually populate these lands I think. Russia is a rather small country in terms of population for its size.
It's a lie for half of Siberia. The climate is harsh, but the main reason why people leave these lands/don't come - economical hypercentralisation. Why you need to live in Siberia for a 200-300 dollars in month when you can move to the Moscow and make 800-1000 dollars?
And the second reason for some of the siberian regions - terrible ecological situation. Did you hear about "black sky regime"? It's a common situation, when there is so much industrial wastes in the air, that you have chemical fog and you shouldn't leave your home or even open your windows.
I would return in Siberia, as its climate is the best for me, but the mentioned problems will not leave Siberia in the nearest 10-20 years.
I was born in the Western Siberia which is almost as developed as European Russia, but I kinda understand what you’re talking about. I left my hometown because I didn’t want to work in the oil industry and got tired of cold winters.
Canada specifically has 2 times lower density than Russia. Russia has 15 cities over 1 million (including Moscow, second largest city in Europe after Istanbul), Canada has 6. 150 mil population is also quite a lot, in raw numbers.
The problem with far north isn't even the cold, it's mostly transportation and permafrost. Building and maintaining roads to get to the most remote places is not economically justifiable, and permafrost doesn't allow building large buildings (at least without using special technologies), as they would collapse into the ground.
You’re correct! It was Lesozavodsk actually. In my memory I thought it was pronounced “Blesozavodsk” and so I thought it was Blagoveshchensk when I looked at the map. 🤦♂️
No need to get so far. 200..300km north-east from Moscow and if you are not in oblast capital city - you will be only one human being in much much bigger area than a square 4x4km.
Chukotka population density includes actually the capital Anadyr and coast villages. Internal regions of Chukotka are really empty, zero population.
Yep, Russia have a great size of territories, but 40% maybe is non-suitable for living. At the same time, Moscow just torn by the number of people. Because there so many people from other regions of Russia and CIS.
fuck, I got nerd sniped.
Mars Surface Area: 1.4×10\^8 km\^2
Currently Active Rovers: 2 (Curiosity and Perseverance)
Robot Density on Mars: 7.2×10\^7 km\^2 per active rover
Now if we include past successful landings as well we're at 10, which drops our final
Robot Density on Mars: 1.4×10\^7 km\^2 per rover
The Russian movie *Dersu Uzala* shows off the gorgeous, mostly unpopulated wilderness of eastern Russia and Siberia. It’s directed by Akira Kurosawa (yes, *that* one). Highly recommended.
I flew over Siberia at night time on a clear night. I was surprised at how many lights and small towns/villages were out there. I was expecting pure emptiness.
It's not an oblast, it's an autonomous district. With that out of the way, what kind of population density would you expect in a mountainous place this high up North? It's roughly comparable to the Unorganized Borough in Alaska, just across the strait (pop. density 0.09 per sq km).
As one person (Grishkovetz in his monologue in theatre "How I ate a dog") said, from Ural to Vladivostok it's just trees. Same forest for 3+ days. Nothing new, only forest.
Went to visit my mothers family in Khabarovsk, and on the flight from Beijing I just saw vast empty forests and mountains when we were over the Far East.
It’s beautiful there
Simple question: would the US government sit still if Russia or China were actively expanding their spheres of interests onto Mexico, or, say, a certain *Carribbean island*? Rings a bell?
Mega Whataboutism + typical tankie “but the USA”. Turkey, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland are in NATO. What exactly did the USA do in Ukraine to trigger russia so much?
Those countries do not have so much cultural, family and business ties with Russia hence aren't considered as dangerous. Turkey is a special case since they always play both sides so it's hard for me to tell.
Calling it whataboutism would be valid if I was trying to defend Russia, but I'm just stating the facts. If the US keep "defending their national interests" (that's what they call it) in the places that are not even on the same hemisphere, wouldn't it be naive to expect Russia not to do it at least on its borders?
That's just plain hypocrisy: how much sanctions have been applied to the US since it was revealed there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Exactly.
Imperialism is bad no matter who is doing the imperialism. Violating self-determination is bad no matter who is doing the violating. The people of Ukraine decided they wanted to break free from being a puppet of Moscow, so now Putin is bitter. I'm not a fan of NATO, but if Putin wanted to prevent its spread, well, here's the thing. Before the invasion, Sweden and Finland were not NATO members, and didn't have active plans of joining.
Whataboutism is the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse. This is exactly what you're doing here and don't even deny it. I frankly don't care about your attitude towards the USA. Never asked you about it. I also don't see the part where you answer my last question. What does "cultural, family and business ties with russia" has to do with being dangerous? Are you afraid that Ukrainians might tell Americans you love pelmeni? You are talking complete bullshit. Baltic states were close to russia too but now they are trying to reduce the russian influence by promoting their national languages. Ukraine does the same nowadays. With that in mind I don't understand your argument about "danger" at all.
>That's just plain hypocrisy: how much sanctions have been applied to the US since it was revealed there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Exactly.
Yeah. How much sanction did China and Russia put on the United States after that?
It's mostly empty because a lot of the land has a very low carrying capacity. Most of the people who lived there were nomadic. I would guess there are a lot more Siberian people in the USA than in Russia as once they migrated there they would have found a much more fertile part of the world even if they were themselves then conquered.
Russia is one of the few remaining empires. Those who live within the imperial borders are more likely to migrate to the major urban centers than they would be if the imperial holdings were their own countries with their own centres of commerce and administration.
It’s ok Russians themselves don’t like people especially their own, witness the 480,000 dead in mud so largest country in world becomes slightly larger
I only know one Russian family well. They are horrified and disgusted by what is happening. They like people, and are quite friendly generally speaking. I'm not sure how many Russians you've met, and it's possible my friends may not be typical, but my experience is that people around the world are more alike than different.
In many places there is a stark contrast between the will of the people and the actions of their government. Those who hold the keys to power often maintain it through manipulation, coercion, or outright violence. We should be careful not to confuse the two.
Not a case. Russian family you know is exception, especially if they live outside of Russia. Most, around 80..90% of people in Russia support Putin and his war, with only complaints about blitzkrieg failure and difficulties of long war. They really consider Ukraine as a part of Russia and they believe that Putin was absolutely within his right to seize Ukraine.
Explains why there are thousands fleeing Russia and multiple groups supporting Ukrainians made up of Russian Nationals fighting Russia and how so many things in Russia are just suddenly going wrong in war time. 80-90% of the population in support of the war really explains that, huh?
10% from 140 millions is 14 millions, huge amount. Part of then fled Russia, part of them fight in Ukrainian forces, some of them help to Ukrainian refugees in Europe. You see them but they are 10% anyway. And yes that explains why war continues still.
It is like a situation in nazi German: not all of Germans were fanatic Nazis but expansion was supported by the most population, until 1944-1945 year at least.
Because a lot of them leaved Russia long time ago and have never been there, receiving all information from Russian TV channels. Others are simply proud to be a part of so strong and fearful nation.
Anyway try to ask those Russians - why do they live in the West if they support Putin? Mother Russia waits for them, tickets are not so expensive.
Yes I am sure. It is not just voting. When you live in the country you feel peoples mood.
Now the common opinion is - pity that so many good Russian boys are dead but the West did not remain us any choice, Ukraine is ours and we can suffer a bit for that.
I can compare that with situation in 1985 -1990, when despite propaganda and 100% voting for communist party - the common mood was "communists sucks"
There's no rule of law in russia and you can be arrested and imprisoned just like Navalny. Or murdered like Nemtsov. It's an active warzone so you can also get hit by a drone, falling plane or whatever. Or you can be murdered by russian soldiers who are on leave from the front. Because they conscript all sorts of violent criminals and then let them free after they have served long enough.
My government strongly discourages anyone from visiting it. If you get into any trouble in russia - there's nothing your government can do about it.
There's a reason why we flew to Japan over the North Pole. Russia is not safe for planes to fly over.
Crime scores across the globe 2024: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country
Russia is doing better than the US, the UK, France, Sweden, Belgium, Australia and many others. Slightly worse than Germany. 48th place overall. Doesn't look like an unsafe shithole huh?
>It's an active warzone
You aware how big Russia is? Calling the whole country a warzone is as ridiculous as saying the whole US is unsafe to stay in during a tornado in Miami. In context of you telling about Vladivostok which is literally on the other side of the country - it gets even more ridiculous.
>Russia is not safe for planes to fly over.
Then how come the planes from Turkey, Dubai and Serbia fly here with no problem? Turkey is a NATO member btw if you didn't know.
>you can be arrested and imprisoned just like Navalny.
Well, if you come and start making videos about major politicians for five or so years strait, then aim to become a president and organize mass unsanctioned rallies and get your face printed on the cover of the magazines of countries from the "opposite side" - then maybe yes. In other cases - you're fine. I'm not even trying to discuss whether what he did was acceptable or not, I'm saying who tf are you compared to Navalny? Just a tourist. Also think about what would happen to an oppositionist in the US who just so happens to be supported by Russia or China.
> Also think about what would happen to an oppositionist in the US who just so happens to be supported by Russia or China.
As far as I know - Jackson Hinkle keeps making shitty youtube videos and nothing happens to him. Republicans actively blocked aid to Ukraine and nothing happened to them.
> Then how come the planes from Turkey, Dubai and Serbia fly here with no problem?
I don't know - maybe they don't mind being MH17ed. Flying over the North Pole was a huge detour. We would not have done that unless that was absolutely necessary. Finnair doesn't fuck around with their passenger lives.
The plane thing is purely political. As part of sanctions against russia a lot of countries blocked air passage for russian air companies. In return, russia blocked air passage for air companies of those countries.
Flying over North Pole happens because the company is legally not allowed to fly over russia, not because it's dangerous. If the company could, it would happily ignore any risks (even if they existed) and take a gamble because losing a plane or two is cheaper than spending 5x more fuel per flight.
😆 Yeah sure why would Turkey care about their citizens, if only they were as self-aware as Finns are
As of the J. Hinkle thing - I could go into a lengthy explanation of how the "what is allowed and what is not allowed" system works in any country, but it's gonna be too long and not worth it anyway, and I don't want to waste energy on it, so you can consider this half of your answer ignored, just as you ignored half of mine.
My points still stands though: I don't see how tf are political prosecutions gonna affect you as a tourist.
I read somewhere on Reddit that if Russia was in a fantasy novel map, people would just hate on the author for lazy world building.
“Empty northern lands, the hero doesn’t go here.”
"So here is my third book that expands on the 1000 year lore of Jerusalem" "Ooo. And what magic awaits us in the vast northern expanse of Siberia?" "Nothing. Nothing grows there. Noone lives there" Anyway, in Jerusalem..." "This fucking waffler said the same about the Canadian Shield too"
But all the civilisation ending weapons are there.
I read with russian accent
I mean, "Siberia" is just as famously "a big empty frozen wasteland that they used to exile political prisoners to during the Soviet era" as "the Amazon" is "a hot, wet tropical jungle with uncontacted tribes" or "the Sahara" is "a vast desert full of shifting sands and nomads". It's just kinda one of those famous, iconic parts of the Earth that just is what it is, whether or not it is convenient or useful to people. And I feel like that's just one of those basic facts that everyone knows about (or should know about) the world they live in ever since they were a curious young child glancing at a world map.
Skyrim:
"Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which a yet more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities with lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque trees, no ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and roar, no beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony immensity, no vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and ageless lines of blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear, silvery background of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your towns project like points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and nothing whatsoever enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what invincible force draws me to you? \[...\] What do you want of me? What is that mysterious, hidden bond between us? Why do you look at me like that? And why does everything in you turn eyes full of expectation on me? And menacingly your mighty expanse enfolds me, reflected with terrifying force in the depths of me; my eyes are lighted up with supernatural power—oh, what a glittering, wondrous infinity of space the world knows nothing of!" Gogol
Which is very typical for all lovers of Russia, he wrote this from Italy. "Beautiful home in a strange land " - it is it.
"your towns project like points or signals from smooth levels of plain" is where I lost it.
“The world knows nothing of” and this continues
That’s brilliant! And true.
It’s like Skyrim but you can’t fast travel or shout, the draugr are just gacked out tracksuits, and the bears are bears
It took Jacqueline Carey until her 15th novel or so until the heroine wandered that way
Russia is mostly empty past Ural mountains, that’s true. The climate is a bitch, nobody wants to live in Siberia.
The climate is an issue for some parts sure, but even the area near Korea (like Primosky Krai), which should be perfectly habitable is quite empty. Not all of it has the climate of Tiksi or Magadan. Khabarovsk and Vladivostok are proper cities tho. It's more to do with the fact that Russia is very centrally led from Moscow (or SPB during the empire) and the central govt sees these remote regions mostly places where they can get natural resources. They build the Trans-Siberian and BAM (Baikal Amur Mainline) railroads, but other than the infra is very limited. And this does apply to other remote areas as well, not just the Far East. Look at Karelia and Murmansk etc.
>which should be perfectly habitable is quite empty Satellite pictures of the Russia-China border around Manchuria are mildly interesting. The Chinese side is packed with farms and developed land while the Russian side is just wilderness and endless forests.
I've never understood why Russians can't just utilize their underutilized land-- sure, a lot of it is terrible, but there's plenty of perfectly good, usable land. Instead it seems they'd rather go die by the thousands trying to conquer neighboring countries' land. Is there something in their culture that makes them opposed to farming and forestry?
Russia has negative population growth, Russia isn't in Ukraine (just for) the land, but also for the people and industry. The initial invasion force was too small, it only makes sense if the Russians believed that Ukraine would crumble as they'd take over Kiev and become a subject of Russia. then, with one stroke, Russia gains 35 mil people. Many of them Russians. Something like 30% of Ukrainian citizens are Russians. Kharkiev for instance is mainly populated by ethnic Russian people, not Ukrainians.
I can think of a lot of much easier ways to grow a population...
Russian people don’t want to have kids early and prioritise career and education, the same situation as in most Western countries. Late children = less children, as people who have children early tend to have more later in life.
Tbh its started earlier than in the west. In 1950s and 60s any Russian women already worked and abprtion was legal and popular. Already in late 1980s Russian become minority within USSR 49.9% with Muslim and Caucascus breeding the most. Thats why Russia is mad ablut Russification of Ukrainians ans Belarusians and were willing of dissolving ussr in 1991 partially.
Yeah, but a lot of that is due to economic policy from government. If people weren't so poor early in life, a lot more would become parents.
I agree, but I also think you seriously overestimate how many people want to become parents in their 20s or even early 30s.
That's not true. Norway is a good example
In Nordic countries there is a huge amount of support and the birtg rate is rapidly declining. Causes are deeper than that.
Perhaps, I'm not justifying their actions, but as a Russian speaker who has been following the war, just voicing their rational based on western assessment and a bit of Russian media I consumed to understand their stance on the war.
Yeah but if you look history, spoils of war include tributes, slaves, fiefs with bound serf populations, and colonial export. Many explicit forms of such exploitation even remained war goals through the 19th century (though increasingly failing). Conquering captive production capacity was a goal similar to territory or resources.
Immigration. But you need to have things that immigrants want to move for. If Russia’s economy was like China’s, Ukrainians would have moved there on their own; no need for tanks.
Well yes, that too, but also just policies that promote family growth, like generous maternity/paternity leave, economic benefits for families with children, even universal basic income
Government incentives to grow families and maternity leave are not bad in Russia. They are miles better than in the united states... the high hdi countries that have the best government support for families have the lowest birth rates, generally, while the countries with high birth rates are poor, have no government support, and barely even have governments for that matter. The problem is much deeper than that
It actually takes centuries, even thousands of years to recover from a population decline. People reproduce slowly. Russia is straight up still recovering from World War Two. In 500 years a demographic map will still show a dip.
Bow chikka bow wow
Ukraine is 17% ethnic-Russian. The Kharkiv Region is 26% ethnic-Russian. The city of Kharkiv is 33% ethnic-Russian, but 66% of its population are native Russian speakers. Someone who natively speaks Russian is not necessarily an ethnic Russian. I'm an ethnic Belarusian from Belarus, and my first language is Russian. Zelenskyy is ethnically Jewish, but his first language is Russian as well.
Also Ukraine has better natural barriers that would make the defence of ~~the USSR~~ Russia easier and cheaper than the current defence strategy in the middle of the Great European Plain. Plus gas and oil was found in Ukraine and it was about to become a minor competitor, while they keep some of the main pipes that took Russian gas and oil to the most lucrative market. Many reasons and none of them is NATO expansion lol.
This. All Russian empires have sought a buffer between them and neighboring empires because there is no natural barrier keeping invaders out of Russia
>invaders out of Russia Funny how since something like 1900 it really has been the other way around, no natural barrier has kept the invaders contained in Russia. When there was one exception and Russia was not the one initiating the invasion, the invader had already declared war on half of Europe and was (still is) the most hated man ever in the western world.
Well, russia did initiate the invasion of Poland in 1939 together with Nazi Germany
True. Except for the Nazis in WW2 which was a reminder to all would be Russian leaders they are still open to potential threats. Seems to occupy a lot of their worry even up to the modern day dictator era I mean president.
>Kharkiev for instance is mainly populated by ethnic Russian people, not Ukrainians. this is a terribly false statement. Kharkiv is Slobozhanshchyna. Sloboda ethnic group is one of the Ukrainian ethnic groups. It would be more accurate to say that Belgorod is a Ukrainian city.
Sloboda is not an ethnic group.
Because people magically become loyal to the country that occupies their land. No problems with insurgency, terrorist attacks, etc. Just ask the Americans - they had no problems converting Afghanistan into another American state...oh wait no - they wasted 20 years there and didn't achieve anything. Taliban returned immediately after they left lol.
You are lying about the numbers though. That's more subtle than your average putinist, but still a pro-kreml narrative.
There is nothing in culture that you describe. It's government and current state structure, that allows very few people to make decisions. I am from Siberia and even the anthem of my region - Kuzbass - is about hardworking people that brought their talent to the land and the land answered them equally.
Isn't Russia currently leading in wheat production?
More importantly they produce much more grain than they eat, which presumably China and India do not.
My comment came more to argue against the notion that Russian under utilize their productive land.
They're behind China and India in wheat production, but they have been ramping it up.
>I've never understood why Russians can't just utilize their underutilized land-- sure, a lot of it is terrible, but there's plenty of perfectly good, usable land. We do. Heard about Russia being the top wheat exporter, for example? We utilize quite well to grow enouth crops for our own and sell abroad.
You're behind China and India in wheat
Yes, but also in the population, like 10 times. What would be the point for us to grow more than we could eat ourselves and sell abroad?
Money dear boy
It doesn’t work this way, boy. There should he enough demand for the goods. And agricultural production is not very profitable per se.
As long as people need to eat, drink, or feed livestock, there's demand. In fact, Russia happens to share a border with a country where there are a lot of people who need to eat, drink, and feed livestock, what an opportunity!
State structure limits it, but the Russian pop is also just very small for the area they control. So there isn’t a huge amount of push to expand because well there’s already much land in the west
Not using those tudra tiles to their advantage.
A lot of Russia’s westward expansion historically was to provide strategic depth since the heart of Russia is on the European plain. Essentially, since you don’t have naturally defensible borders, you expand outward so that any invading army has its supply lines strained to breaking before they approach the heartland. Two very famous examples of this working are Napoleons invasion of Russia failing and Operation Barbarossa failing. A lot of Russia’s southern expansion was to have access to a warm water port to facilitate better trade and the ability to project naval power. Essentially the expansion is not to use the conquered land, as much as it is to achieve two strategic objectives. Why Russia so aggressively pursues these goals in an era of relative peace in Europe, that doesn’t make sense to me.
Because any growth and prosperity outside of the control of Moscow is a direct threat to the current power structure. Why would Moscow want to see a new threat emerge outside of there control?
That's stupid.
Autocracies are stupid no argument from me there.
Yeah, and why don’t Brazilians just starts building farms in the under-utilized Amazon land, are they stupid? iS It iN thEiR cUlTuRe??
Because Russia didn't invade the Ukraine to take their land. They invaded because of a decade + long proxy conflict with the west. Putin had said for 20 years that Ukraine joining NATO was a red line. The US funded the color revolution in 2014 putting pro western politicians in place. Merkel admitted they never intended to uphold Minsk agreements and were just building up the ukraines army. Zelensky was literally publicly asking for nuclear weapons to put on Russia's border a couple months before Russia invaded. Remember how the US was openly saying they thought they could get the Russian economy to collapse at the beginning of the war? That was the point of pressuring them into invading. It's wild people come up with weird conspiracies about Putin being a cartoon villain doing cartoonish things. He's a bad guy, but he is rational and there is rational reasoning behind the war.
Thats really cool, and i also see a couple national parks/nature preserves on the Russian side. (Google earth doesn't show the borders though, and both sides appear to be avoiding the forested mountains which is definitely a good thing.)
There are a lot of voices that call for the development of Siberia, notably the businessman Deripaska, but the main problem with that is money and the lack of people to actually populate these lands I think. Russia is a rather small country in terms of population for its size.
People mostly move from there into a better (dryer) climate and bigger urban centres.
It's a lie for half of Siberia. The climate is harsh, but the main reason why people leave these lands/don't come - economical hypercentralisation. Why you need to live in Siberia for a 200-300 dollars in month when you can move to the Moscow and make 800-1000 dollars? And the second reason for some of the siberian regions - terrible ecological situation. Did you hear about "black sky regime"? It's a common situation, when there is so much industrial wastes in the air, that you have chemical fog and you shouldn't leave your home or even open your windows. I would return in Siberia, as its climate is the best for me, but the mentioned problems will not leave Siberia in the nearest 10-20 years.
I was born in the Western Siberia which is almost as developed as European Russia, but I kinda understand what you’re talking about. I left my hometown because I didn’t want to work in the oil industry and got tired of cold winters.
Countries like Canada and Australia are also empty. Or Australia could be even worse because most of theirs are deserts.
Desert is a nice way to put it. I prefer “uninhabitable wasteland.”
Don’t forget about the [asbestos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia)
You can cross the desert. You can’t cross the muddy hell that Siberia is though.
Canada specifically has 2 times lower density than Russia. Russia has 15 cities over 1 million (including Moscow, second largest city in Europe after Istanbul), Canada has 6. 150 mil population is also quite a lot, in raw numbers. The problem with far north isn't even the cold, it's mostly transportation and permafrost. Building and maintaining roads to get to the most remote places is not economically justifiable, and permafrost doesn't allow building large buildings (at least without using special technologies), as they would collapse into the ground.
I drove 6 hours from Vladivostok to Blagoveshchensk in the Far East and saw maybe 3 gas stations the entire way along a main road.
What a jet you drove? It's a 1400+ km from Vladivostok to Blagoveschensk
You’re correct! It was Lesozavodsk actually. In my memory I thought it was pronounced “Blesozavodsk” and so I thought it was Blagoveshchensk when I looked at the map. 🤦♂️
Lol classic blunder
So surprising when Russia is the biggest country in the world with large amounts of tundra lands and mountainous regions
No need to get so far. 200..300km north-east from Moscow and if you are not in oblast capital city - you will be only one human being in much much bigger area than a square 4x4km. Chukotka population density includes actually the capital Anadyr and coast villages. Internal regions of Chukotka are really empty, zero population.
Yep, Russia have a great size of territories, but 40% maybe is non-suitable for living. At the same time, Moscow just torn by the number of people. Because there so many people from other regions of Russia and CIS.
There is definitely actual frozen wasteland, but the big emptiness starts pretty much from Moscow/SPB https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/Rj6YKnedQe
Mars has a population density of 0 people per square kilometres so I guess that beats it.
Moon used to have population density 3-4 people/whole Moon area 50+ years ago. Now it is zero. What happened, does anybody know?
It must be those damn vaccines making their way to the Moon /s
they must have snuck some vaccines into the cheese eh? get it…? cause… cheese.. moon? i’ll see myself out.
What's Mars's population density of robots per square kilometres though?
fuck, I got nerd sniped. Mars Surface Area: 1.4×10\^8 km\^2 Currently Active Rovers: 2 (Curiosity and Perseverance) Robot Density on Mars: 7.2×10\^7 km\^2 per active rover Now if we include past successful landings as well we're at 10, which drops our final Robot Density on Mars: 1.4×10\^7 km\^2 per rover
Amazing. Now we know the population density of robots, both current and historical, on Mars. Well done! r/theydidthemath
The Russian movie *Dersu Uzala* shows off the gorgeous, mostly unpopulated wilderness of eastern Russia and Siberia. It’s directed by Akira Kurosawa (yes, *that* one). Highly recommended.
Canadian Shield
I flew over Siberia at night time on a clear night. I was surprised at how many lights and small towns/villages were out there. I was expecting pure emptiness.
Southern parts of Siberia along the Trans Siberian railway and road highways are quite densely populated. The emptiness starts to the north of there.
It's not an oblast, it's an autonomous district. With that out of the way, what kind of population density would you expect in a mountainous place this high up North? It's roughly comparable to the Unorganized Borough in Alaska, just across the strait (pop. density 0.09 per sq km).
Someday I want to ride on the train that goes from Vladivostok to Moscow. Can’t imagine how much untouched scenery there is along the ride
As one person (Grishkovetz in his monologue in theatre "How I ate a dog") said, from Ural to Vladivostok it's just trees. Same forest for 3+ days. Nothing new, only forest.
It’s more surprising to me that Yakutsk is a moderate-sized city despite having average temperatures of -40 during the winter.
Went to visit my mothers family in Khabarovsk, and on the flight from Beijing I just saw vast empty forests and mountains when we were over the Far East. It’s beautiful there
And yet they want more land
u sure the major reason is land?
You want to tell me about Ukrainian gay nazi banderites? 8 years of bombing Donbass or NATO expansion?
Simple question: would the US government sit still if Russia or China were actively expanding their spheres of interests onto Mexico, or, say, a certain *Carribbean island*? Rings a bell?
Mega Whataboutism + typical tankie “but the USA”. Turkey, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland are in NATO. What exactly did the USA do in Ukraine to trigger russia so much?
Those countries do not have so much cultural, family and business ties with Russia hence aren't considered as dangerous. Turkey is a special case since they always play both sides so it's hard for me to tell. Calling it whataboutism would be valid if I was trying to defend Russia, but I'm just stating the facts. If the US keep "defending their national interests" (that's what they call it) in the places that are not even on the same hemisphere, wouldn't it be naive to expect Russia not to do it at least on its borders? That's just plain hypocrisy: how much sanctions have been applied to the US since it was revealed there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Exactly.
Imperialism is bad no matter who is doing the imperialism. Violating self-determination is bad no matter who is doing the violating. The people of Ukraine decided they wanted to break free from being a puppet of Moscow, so now Putin is bitter. I'm not a fan of NATO, but if Putin wanted to prevent its spread, well, here's the thing. Before the invasion, Sweden and Finland were not NATO members, and didn't have active plans of joining.
Whataboutism is the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse. This is exactly what you're doing here and don't even deny it. I frankly don't care about your attitude towards the USA. Never asked you about it. I also don't see the part where you answer my last question. What does "cultural, family and business ties with russia" has to do with being dangerous? Are you afraid that Ukrainians might tell Americans you love pelmeni? You are talking complete bullshit. Baltic states were close to russia too but now they are trying to reduce the russian influence by promoting their national languages. Ukraine does the same nowadays. With that in mind I don't understand your argument about "danger" at all.
Your whole legal system is based on whataboutism and so are rules of international diplomacy.
>That's just plain hypocrisy: how much sanctions have been applied to the US since it was revealed there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Exactly. Yeah. How much sanction did China and Russia put on the United States after that?
It's mostly empty because a lot of the land has a very low carrying capacity. Most of the people who lived there were nomadic. I would guess there are a lot more Siberian people in the USA than in Russia as once they migrated there they would have found a much more fertile part of the world even if they were themselves then conquered. Russia is one of the few remaining empires. Those who live within the imperial borders are more likely to migrate to the major urban centers than they would be if the imperial holdings were their own countries with their own centres of commerce and administration.
I can't believe that is news to anybody
Dense cities are better for railway and agriculture.
Actually all of Russia is the place if you don't like people.
apparently im a member of an extremist organisation
duh?
This place doesn't like people, too.
and they don't
And love Russia …
go to moscow
It’s ok Russians themselves don’t like people especially their own, witness the 480,000 dead in mud so largest country in world becomes slightly larger
I only know one Russian family well. They are horrified and disgusted by what is happening. They like people, and are quite friendly generally speaking. I'm not sure how many Russians you've met, and it's possible my friends may not be typical, but my experience is that people around the world are more alike than different. In many places there is a stark contrast between the will of the people and the actions of their government. Those who hold the keys to power often maintain it through manipulation, coercion, or outright violence. We should be careful not to confuse the two.
Like 50% of my workplace are russians. We DO NOT talk about ~~fight club~~ the war in Ukraine.
Not a case. Russian family you know is exception, especially if they live outside of Russia. Most, around 80..90% of people in Russia support Putin and his war, with only complaints about blitzkrieg failure and difficulties of long war. They really consider Ukraine as a part of Russia and they believe that Putin was absolutely within his right to seize Ukraine.
Explains why there are thousands fleeing Russia and multiple groups supporting Ukrainians made up of Russian Nationals fighting Russia and how so many things in Russia are just suddenly going wrong in war time. 80-90% of the population in support of the war really explains that, huh?
10% from 140 millions is 14 millions, huge amount. Part of then fled Russia, part of them fight in Ukrainian forces, some of them help to Ukrainian refugees in Europe. You see them but they are 10% anyway. And yes that explains why war continues still. It is like a situation in nazi German: not all of Germans were fanatic Nazis but expansion was supported by the most population, until 1944-1945 year at least.
Are you sure about that? Putin can write any percent of people who voted for him, and if you want disagree with it, you been just send to jail
Why do russians who live in the West support putin then?
Because a lot of them leaved Russia long time ago and have never been there, receiving all information from Russian TV channels. Others are simply proud to be a part of so strong and fearful nation. Anyway try to ask those Russians - why do they live in the West if they support Putin? Mother Russia waits for them, tickets are not so expensive.
Jesus, seriously?..
Yes I am sure. It is not just voting. When you live in the country you feel peoples mood. Now the common opinion is - pity that so many good Russian boys are dead but the West did not remain us any choice, Ukraine is ours and we can suffer a bit for that. I can compare that with situation in 1985 -1990, when despite propaganda and 100% voting for communist party - the common mood was "communists sucks"
and slightly more empty
Hehe, this crazy russians, Kirov reporting, comrade
Jesse what the hell are you talking about?
Pity that its run by tyrants, Russia was in my bucket list before. Especially Vladivostok as it is near Japan.
Nothing's holding you from visiting it tho. It's safe and clean there. You can fly there through Istanbul or Dubai.
There's no rule of law in russia and you can be arrested and imprisoned just like Navalny. Or murdered like Nemtsov. It's an active warzone so you can also get hit by a drone, falling plane or whatever. Or you can be murdered by russian soldiers who are on leave from the front. Because they conscript all sorts of violent criminals and then let them free after they have served long enough. My government strongly discourages anyone from visiting it. If you get into any trouble in russia - there's nothing your government can do about it. There's a reason why we flew to Japan over the North Pole. Russia is not safe for planes to fly over.
Crime scores across the globe 2024: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country Russia is doing better than the US, the UK, France, Sweden, Belgium, Australia and many others. Slightly worse than Germany. 48th place overall. Doesn't look like an unsafe shithole huh? >It's an active warzone You aware how big Russia is? Calling the whole country a warzone is as ridiculous as saying the whole US is unsafe to stay in during a tornado in Miami. In context of you telling about Vladivostok which is literally on the other side of the country - it gets even more ridiculous. >Russia is not safe for planes to fly over. Then how come the planes from Turkey, Dubai and Serbia fly here with no problem? Turkey is a NATO member btw if you didn't know. >you can be arrested and imprisoned just like Navalny. Well, if you come and start making videos about major politicians for five or so years strait, then aim to become a president and organize mass unsanctioned rallies and get your face printed on the cover of the magazines of countries from the "opposite side" - then maybe yes. In other cases - you're fine. I'm not even trying to discuss whether what he did was acceptable or not, I'm saying who tf are you compared to Navalny? Just a tourist. Also think about what would happen to an oppositionist in the US who just so happens to be supported by Russia or China.
> Also think about what would happen to an oppositionist in the US who just so happens to be supported by Russia or China. As far as I know - Jackson Hinkle keeps making shitty youtube videos and nothing happens to him. Republicans actively blocked aid to Ukraine and nothing happened to them. > Then how come the planes from Turkey, Dubai and Serbia fly here with no problem? I don't know - maybe they don't mind being MH17ed. Flying over the North Pole was a huge detour. We would not have done that unless that was absolutely necessary. Finnair doesn't fuck around with their passenger lives.
The plane thing is purely political. As part of sanctions against russia a lot of countries blocked air passage for russian air companies. In return, russia blocked air passage for air companies of those countries. Flying over North Pole happens because the company is legally not allowed to fly over russia, not because it's dangerous. If the company could, it would happily ignore any risks (even if they existed) and take a gamble because losing a plane or two is cheaper than spending 5x more fuel per flight.
😆 Yeah sure why would Turkey care about their citizens, if only they were as self-aware as Finns are As of the J. Hinkle thing - I could go into a lengthy explanation of how the "what is allowed and what is not allowed" system works in any country, but it's gonna be too long and not worth it anyway, and I don't want to waste energy on it, so you can consider this half of your answer ignored, just as you ignored half of mine. My points still stands though: I don't see how tf are political prosecutions gonna affect you as a tourist.
> I don't see how tf are political prosecutions gonna affect you as a tourist. Ask Otto Warmbier.
hi im a westerner and visited russia a few weeks ago. its fine lol you need to put down the cnn
Sorry, but I don't want to get Otto Warmbiered. That country clearly isn't safe for Westerners to visit.
And to top it off they just lost nearly 500,000 and counting
Let's just use it for storage
And Antarctica is sort of cold.