My man Russia has had access to plenty of sea. Sankt Petersburg is on the Baltic Sea and has been there for like 300 years. The Russian Empire had access to the Black Sea and the Pacific and so did the Soviet Union. It’s not the access to the sea that’s making them conservative, it’s the Russian Orthodox Church and their governments keeping them uneducated so they can control them easily. The Russian Orthodox Church is so conservative they refuse to change to the Gregorian calendar, they still use the Julian Calendar which is innacurate and keeps drifting so that they celebrate most Christian Holidays like 2 weeks later than everyone else.
And access to the Baltic Sea and to the Black Sea is worth, jack sht, if access to the Atlantic from there can be blocked by multiple countries. It is actually worse than access of Austria to the Seas. In the case of Austria goods can be delivered within the Single Market to an Atlantic port. The only access to the Oceans is at the Pacific but the Transsiberian Railway doesn’t have nearly the capacity to make that Russia’s main port and there is not that much of anything in the far east to need a huge port. It is good as a military harbour but terrible for projecting maritime power to Europe where Russia is engaged in imperialist wars of conquest.
My man Russia has had access to plenty of sea. Sankt Petersburg is on the Baltic Sea and has been there for like 300 years. The Russian Empire had access to the Black Sea and the Pacific and so did the Soviet Union. It’s not the access to the sea that’s making them conservative, it’s the Russian Orthodox Church and their governments keeping them uneducated so they can control them easily. The Russian Orthodox Church is so conservative they refuse to change to the Gregorian calendar, they still use the Julian Calendar which is innacurate and keeps drifting so that they celebrate most Christian Holidays like 2 weeks later than everyone else.
And access to the Baltic Sea and to the Black Sea is worth, jack sht, if access to the Atlantic from there can be blocked by multiple countries. It is actually worse than access of Austria to the Seas. In the case of Austria goods can be delivered within the Single Market to an Atlantic port. The only access to the Oceans is at the Pacific but the Transsiberian Railway doesn’t have nearly the capacity to make that Russia’s main port and there is not that much of anything in the far east to need a huge port. It is good as a military harbour but terrible for projecting maritime power to Europe where Russia is engaged in imperialist wars of conquest.