Even many historians neglect the powerful influence that the Central Asian herding societies had on the development of Eurasian agrarian societies. Their existential military threat forced Russia, China and others to grow big and centralized.
One point that I would add is that the highly productive soil of modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia could not be plowed before the invention of the steel plow. This made dense populations centers almost impossible to evolve in the Temperate Forest biome. This gave the Herding societies free rein over the region. The invention of the steel plow opened up some of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, including the American Great Plains, the Russian/Ukranian steppe, and the Argentine Pampas.
A comprehensive overview of why Moscow ended up as the capital. Great explanation of the details that finally come together to allow me to make sense of it.
The Mongols, who created the greatest land mass of territory EVER on earth, were able to conquer not just the Kievan Rus and other major Rus tribes, but also a substantial portion of current day China. It is interesting (perhaps sad) how they have been marginalized in current day Russia.
Power is fleeting. There is never a guarantee that the future will be anything we recognize.
Why sad? The Mongols were always small in numbers compared to the agrarian Slavs and Chinese. They couldn't have held on to their empire forever, and I don't see any particular reason to lament their passing.
A very interesting article! I always like your geographic insights. A couple of very important things are missing though:
1. St Petersburg has actually been a capital for 215 years since its foundation in 1703 and only ceased to be the one in 1918 after the Soviets took over and moved the capital back to Moscow.
2. Moscow rose to power and managed to unite most of European Russia under the Golden Horde rule (the Mongol Yoke), which can be explained through political means but cannot through geographical. Also Mongols are responsible for the wane of Kiev as a power center. Although I agree that post-1480 geography definitely helped Moscow to remain strong and resist the invasions from nomads
Accurate! First-Gen Golden Horde realpolitik saw Novgorod-Nevsky and Horde alliance, and the Nevsky lineage became grand princes and de-facto rulers eventually ruling out of Moscow, which went from centralized tax collection hub to a political base. This also shifted the entire Rus center of gravity from Kyiv to Moscow.
An interesting detail from Snyder: the name of the Kievan Rus leader Waldemar has evolved into the Ukrainian Volodymyr (as in Zelenskyy) and to the Russian Vladimir (as in Putin)!
Thank you for such an interesting sight on the history of my former homeland. Tend to agree with all points, moreover as a former Siberian habitant I may allege that these past relationships in therms: metropoly - colonies are still exist and flourish. This is a really complicated and painful topic for Siberia (but not only, almost everywhere in Russia except Moscow you may find same thoughts and concerns that all of us are actually living in a colonies).
1) Political centralisation. Almost every decision is going from the center. Almost all governors are designated from Moscow, not elected (with exception of a few regions like Tatarstan). Same for city managers.
2) Finance flows. There is an interesting situation when most of the regions look like loss making and used to live on subsidies from the center. But this is an artificial construction to establish more political control. Almost all valuable taxes like VAT, excise taxes, etc. are transferred to the federal budget with a control center in Moscow. All that you may get as a region is personal income taxes and company income taxes (but the vast majority of big companies have registration in Moscow).
3) Language and local culture. You may study your local language in school on a voluntary basis if you live in the national republic but no one takes it seriously. Same for the local culture. It exists but rather like a bright trinket than as a part of national identity (again with few exceptions). Everything is flattened, every possible influence or counteract from locals is oppressed (one of the examples - https://ovd.info/en/baymak and back to the point 1 with no possibility to select a governor who could be a voice of a region).
5) Life quality. Difference in life quality, salaries, social protection, infrastructure (for example just have a look and compare Moscow metro with other cities to see the difference). From one point of view it could be a popular picture in the world but for inner observer contrast is too bright. There is a popular joke in the regions that Moscow is actually is another state.
Just jumping in here to say that I've heard a lot about "Russian Decolonisation", which I find interesting and fascinating (and almost necessary). Love to hear this from this side of the approach. Just thinking, it would have been interesting if Chechnya had been able to win the second war...
Flipside of that could be something the same as it was in Jugoslavia. With one difference: almost every big region has nuclear bases. Not sure that this is the way.
As always, thank you for this great article, Tomas!
Two questions:
1) Are you sure that the reason Novgorod and Saint Petersburg would be more unable to sustain a large population from farming than Moscow is their more northerly location? Climate-wise there doesn't seem to be a large difference (they are actually milder in winter and similar in summer). Maybe you were hinting more at daylight hours?
2) Why the far east was conquered by Russia and not China, which was closer?
Great, can't wait to read it! By the way, I hope you'll write something about the Balkans soon: I have to be in Athens for a conference in a couple of weeks and I have decided to take the time and drive all the way there from Italy!
Relative to the Kievan Rus, you might want to read that section in Serhii Plokhy’s book THE GATES OF EUROPE: A History of Ukraine, Serhy Yekelchyk’s BIRTH OF A MODERN NATION pp. 18-25. Also go to THINKING ABOUT, the Substack page of Timothy Snyder. You’ll have to scroll down quite a bit to get to the 1st lecture of his free Yale University course on the History of Ukraine (also available on YouTube). I’m doing the class, readings included, and it is very worthwhile. Even just listening to the classes is interesting. Both of these books are on Snyder's reading list. Plokhy’s is the basic text and it is excellent.
Basically they all stress the Scandinavian roots of the Kievan Rus, who were mostly from what is now Sweden. They traded and explored the river systems to the east and south as far as Kiev. More on this can be found in the book THE RIVER KINGS: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman, a bioarchaeologist.
These are in contrast to books on Russian history (and Russian leaders) that look on the Kievan Rus as the foundation of Russia. Ukrainians consider this the founding of their state. Both the books in my previous comment were written by Ukrainians.
Bioarchaeology’s use of isotopes makes it possible to know exactly where and when an individual lived and if the person was related to others or not. Paleontologists using the isotopes in a cross section of a mammoth’s tusk have traced its movements in Alaska from its neonatal stage till it’s death. As for the language doubts, the Scandinavian and Russian languages belong to the Indo-European family and are related although from different branches. Laura Spinney has just published (2025) PROTO: How One Ancient Language Went Global. The introduction alone is worth the price of the book! Linguists believe that Proto Indo-European developed in the area north of the Black Sea and spread eastward and westward. All the European languages (except Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque) belong to the Indo-European languages.
Hi Susan, just a quick note re: "All the European languages (except Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque) belong to the Indo-European languages."
Please don't forget to include Estonian among the non-Indo-European exceptions. Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian (though not Basque) belong to the Finno-Ugric family of languages.
Moscow ended up as a capital as the result of smart diplomacy and alliances long before the stand on the Ugra River. Novgorod was never a serious contestant. Tver was. Tver was initially better positioned than Moscow but lost favor of Mongols due to certain events. In 1331, Ivan Kalita from Moscow received yarlik to reign as the Grand Prince of Vladimir from Uzbek Khan, which means that he became the ruler of all the Rus as far as the Mongols were concerned. This is the beginning of Moscow's dominance over other principalities.
Novosibirsk, despite being the largest town in Siberia now (ca. 1.5 M people), is just 130 years old, the youngest of all major Siberian cities except some Soviet artifacts. It is a result of a purely engineering decision by builders of the Transsiberian railroad to cross the Ob' river at this specific place.
Historical Siberian cities were either trade (Mangazea) or combined military/trade (Tobolsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk etc) outposts, built in logistically convenient places but mostly too far north from the narrow strip of Siberian arable land to support anything more than a harrison.
States that value control seldom have their capitals in coastal areas, according to Robert Hughes in his book BARCELONA. He writes that seaports are too open to new ideas: Atatürk moving the capital from Istanbul to Ankara, Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, and Russia after the revolution from St. Petersburg back to Moscow.
Excellent article.
Even many historians neglect the powerful influence that the Central Asian herding societies had on the development of Eurasian agrarian societies. Their existential military threat forced Russia, China and others to grow big and centralized.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/herding-societies
One point that I would add is that the highly productive soil of modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia could not be plowed before the invention of the steel plow. This made dense populations centers almost impossible to evolve in the Temperate Forest biome. This gave the Herding societies free rein over the region. The invention of the steel plow opened up some of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, including the American Great Plains, the Russian/Ukranian steppe, and the Argentine Pampas.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/biomes-have-profoundly-shaped-human
I would also add that the rapid development of firearms and cannon tipped the military balance between Russia and the horse archers of the steppe.
A comprehensive overview of why Moscow ended up as the capital. Great explanation of the details that finally come together to allow me to make sense of it.
The Mongols, who created the greatest land mass of territory EVER on earth, were able to conquer not just the Kievan Rus and other major Rus tribes, but also a substantial portion of current day China. It is interesting (perhaps sad) how they have been marginalized in current day Russia.
Power is fleeting. There is never a guarantee that the future will be anything we recognize.
Excellent work, Tomas! Thank you!
Why sad? The Mongols were always small in numbers compared to the agrarian Slavs and Chinese. They couldn't have held on to their empire forever, and I don't see any particular reason to lament their passing.
A very interesting article! I always like your geographic insights. A couple of very important things are missing though:
1. St Petersburg has actually been a capital for 215 years since its foundation in 1703 and only ceased to be the one in 1918 after the Soviets took over and moved the capital back to Moscow.
2. Moscow rose to power and managed to unite most of European Russia under the Golden Horde rule (the Mongol Yoke), which can be explained through political means but cannot through geographical. Also Mongols are responsible for the wane of Kiev as a power center. Although I agree that post-1480 geography definitely helped Moscow to remain strong and resist the invasions from nomads
Accurate! First-Gen Golden Horde realpolitik saw Novgorod-Nevsky and Horde alliance, and the Nevsky lineage became grand princes and de-facto rulers eventually ruling out of Moscow, which went from centralized tax collection hub to a political base. This also shifted the entire Rus center of gravity from Kyiv to Moscow.
1. Correct!
2. Yes and no!
Will detail both in next week's premium article
An interesting detail from Snyder: the name of the Kievan Rus leader Waldemar has evolved into the Ukrainian Volodymyr (as in Zelenskyy) and to the Russian Vladimir (as in Putin)!
Ha! Interesting!
Great article. I have long wondered why Moscow is so isolated, and now I see that isolation is a feature, not a bug (or was, at any rate).
I twitched a little at sables being "squirrel-like". Sables are vicious little killers, more like weasels.
Thanks for letting me know! I have never met them!
You’re welcome. They’re pretty similar to the earliest carnivores, which were also vicious little tree-climbing killers.
Thank you for such an interesting sight on the history of my former homeland. Tend to agree with all points, moreover as a former Siberian habitant I may allege that these past relationships in therms: metropoly - colonies are still exist and flourish. This is a really complicated and painful topic for Siberia (but not only, almost everywhere in Russia except Moscow you may find same thoughts and concerns that all of us are actually living in a colonies).
Can you expand on that? How is it still a colony?
Sure
1) Political centralisation. Almost every decision is going from the center. Almost all governors are designated from Moscow, not elected (with exception of a few regions like Tatarstan). Same for city managers.
2) Finance flows. There is an interesting situation when most of the regions look like loss making and used to live on subsidies from the center. But this is an artificial construction to establish more political control. Almost all valuable taxes like VAT, excise taxes, etc. are transferred to the federal budget with a control center in Moscow. All that you may get as a region is personal income taxes and company income taxes (but the vast majority of big companies have registration in Moscow).
3) Language and local culture. You may study your local language in school on a voluntary basis if you live in the national republic but no one takes it seriously. Same for the local culture. It exists but rather like a bright trinket than as a part of national identity (again with few exceptions). Everything is flattened, every possible influence or counteract from locals is oppressed (one of the examples - https://ovd.info/en/baymak and back to the point 1 with no possibility to select a governor who could be a voice of a region).
4) The police apparatus, the omnipotence of the special services. As an example there are some facts (sorry for next two links in russian, there are no translation for that) when you may be imprisoned or fined (https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/01/11/izdanie-iz-komi-nazvanie-karelii-na-karelskom-iazyke-i-shutochnyi-flag-sibiri) for using some non-serious symbols like united siberia flag ( https://siberian-archive.ru/united_states_of_siberia/ ). This is a part of general oppression trend in the country but it could brightly illustrate some fears and approaches.
5) Life quality. Difference in life quality, salaries, social protection, infrastructure (for example just have a look and compare Moscow metro with other cities to see the difference). From one point of view it could be a popular picture in the world but for inner observer contrast is too bright. There is a popular joke in the regions that Moscow is actually is another state.
It may be a really long list.
Just jumping in here to say that I've heard a lot about "Russian Decolonisation", which I find interesting and fascinating (and almost necessary). Love to hear this from this side of the approach. Just thinking, it would have been interesting if Chechnya had been able to win the second war...
Flipside of that could be something the same as it was in Jugoslavia. With one difference: almost every big region has nuclear bases. Not sure that this is the way.
P.S. Love your nickname)
Yep, Kamil Galeev writes extremely well about Russia. Honestly, everything covered by Tomas was covered by Kamil Galeev.
Great article. Please address “Why does Mongolia exist?”
I will!
Fascinating, thank you. 3% is incredible - If that were to happen today in the USA, that'd be 9-10 million people.
It's is utterly crazy
Welcome to pre-modern agrarian life close to the steppes (raiding nomads).
As always, thank you for this great article, Tomas!
Two questions:
1) Are you sure that the reason Novgorod and Saint Petersburg would be more unable to sustain a large population from farming than Moscow is their more northerly location? Climate-wise there doesn't seem to be a large difference (they are actually milder in winter and similar in summer). Maybe you were hinting more at daylight hours?
2) Why the far east was conquered by Russia and not China, which was closer?
Thanks as usual!
You are correct! I'm going to cover both questions in the premium article this week!
Great, can't wait to read it! By the way, I hope you'll write something about the Balkans soon: I have to be in Athens for a conference in a couple of weeks and I have decided to take the time and drive all the way there from Italy!
China went through a long period of isolation beginning with the Ming Dynasty, then came the Opium Wars.
I really enjoy your geography articles!!!
Relative to the Kievan Rus, you might want to read that section in Serhii Plokhy’s book THE GATES OF EUROPE: A History of Ukraine, Serhy Yekelchyk’s BIRTH OF A MODERN NATION pp. 18-25. Also go to THINKING ABOUT, the Substack page of Timothy Snyder. You’ll have to scroll down quite a bit to get to the 1st lecture of his free Yale University course on the History of Ukraine (also available on YouTube). I’m doing the class, readings included, and it is very worthwhile. Even just listening to the classes is interesting. Both of these books are on Snyder's reading list. Plokhy’s is the basic text and it is excellent.
Thanks! Any short summary of the interesting insights?
Basically they all stress the Scandinavian roots of the Kievan Rus, who were mostly from what is now Sweden. They traded and explored the river systems to the east and south as far as Kiev. More on this can be found in the book THE RIVER KINGS: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman, a bioarchaeologist.
These are in contrast to books on Russian history (and Russian leaders) that look on the Kievan Rus as the foundation of Russia. Ukrainians consider this the founding of their state. Both the books in my previous comment were written by Ukrainians.
Ah yes I agree!
But didn't Putin talk about Rurik as the founder of Rus? Rurik was clearly Varangian.
Also Russian doesn't come from there does it? I wonder how that came to be. The Varangian Princes just adopted the local language?
I also thought the very blond, blue-eyed ppl came from the Urals?
Bioarchaeology’s use of isotopes makes it possible to know exactly where and when an individual lived and if the person was related to others or not. Paleontologists using the isotopes in a cross section of a mammoth’s tusk have traced its movements in Alaska from its neonatal stage till it’s death. As for the language doubts, the Scandinavian and Russian languages belong to the Indo-European family and are related although from different branches. Laura Spinney has just published (2025) PROTO: How One Ancient Language Went Global. The introduction alone is worth the price of the book! Linguists believe that Proto Indo-European developed in the area north of the Black Sea and spread eastward and westward. All the European languages (except Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque) belong to the Indo-European languages.
Hi Susan, just a quick note re: "All the European languages (except Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque) belong to the Indo-European languages."
Please don't forget to include Estonian among the non-Indo-European exceptions. Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian (though not Basque) belong to the Finno-Ugric family of languages.
Thank you for your correction.
Moscow ended up as a capital as the result of smart diplomacy and alliances long before the stand on the Ugra River. Novgorod was never a serious contestant. Tver was. Tver was initially better positioned than Moscow but lost favor of Mongols due to certain events. In 1331, Ivan Kalita from Moscow received yarlik to reign as the Grand Prince of Vladimir from Uzbek Khan, which means that he became the ruler of all the Rus as far as the Mongols were concerned. This is the beginning of Moscow's dominance over other principalities.
Re capital in Siberia.
Novosibirsk, despite being the largest town in Siberia now (ca. 1.5 M people), is just 130 years old, the youngest of all major Siberian cities except some Soviet artifacts. It is a result of a purely engineering decision by builders of the Transsiberian railroad to cross the Ob' river at this specific place.
Historical Siberian cities were either trade (Mangazea) or combined military/trade (Tobolsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk etc) outposts, built in logistically convenient places but mostly too far north from the narrow strip of Siberian arable land to support anything more than a harrison.
St Petersburg being Russia capital for quite long time is bit glanced over
Not in the premium article next Tuesday!
This article was about Moscow
Good! 😎
States that value control seldom have their capitals in coastal areas, according to Robert Hughes in his book BARCELONA. He writes that seaports are too open to new ideas: Atatürk moving the capital from Istanbul to Ankara, Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, and Russia after the revolution from St. Petersburg back to Moscow.