Russian Geography and its affect on Society
            
             Russia is the biggest ruled territory in the world. From Kiev, and Moscow, down to Novosibirsk, and across to Vladivostok, its lands stretch far and wide. As a result of having such a massive piece of land, made it hard to keep up with the speed of human development. This affected Russia's political rule in many ways. As it's neighbors of Europe advanced in society, Russia lacked behind. Because of the geographical location of Russian lands, Russian peasantry was hard to maintain, and their course of political history was much harder to progress as a whole before modern times. Russia lacked control of its entire population, made the people want to try their own way of thinking, and made expansion almost impossible because it's land mass was just too big to maintain in post-modern times. If Russia would have been smaller, comparable to a country in Europe, it could have been much better off with much less problems.
             Russia lacked complete control of its population before the 1800s. Although such places as Kiev, Moscow, and other bigger cities were under great rule and power from the rulers of the time, other places that were much farther away in the central areas and to the Far East were not. Rulers could set up laws, but they would not be enforced, or possibly even heard of, until much later when the word would spread of such changes. And example of this can be taken from the changes or religion in Russia. When Vladimir came into power around the 1100s religion was brought into society again starting at Kiev. First he started with the Orthodox religion, and later he converted to Christianity because of his wanting to merry, making Russia Christian. This transformation did not happen automatically. The news of a new religion only came to people through common trade routs throughout Russia. All other places and villages that were much less traveled did not get re...