Is this Russia’s Smartest Idea in History?

Play Supremacy 1914 for FREE on PC, iOS or Android: 💥 Receive a Unique Starter Pack, available only for the next 30 days! During the first 400 years under Russian rule, Siberia was largely undeveloped. But that changed in the mid 1800s, when the political center of gravity shifted to the Western Pacific. Many European countries started to establish themselves in this region, and Russia realized that their lack of development in Eastern Siberia was a strategic weakness. Their choice was to either develop the region, or to risk that another nation would do it for them. They chose to build a railroad. This is the story of the Trans Siberian Railroad with Hindsight. Support me on Patreon: (starting at $2 per month) FULL TRANSCRIPT SOURCES: MAIN SOURCES: Road to power : the Trans-Siberian railroad and the colonization of Asian Russia, 1850-1917 History of Trans-Siberian Railway: