I’m curious about the Inuit lifestyle, compared to Native Americans in the USA.
There is more than a little presentism in these dismissals of Siberia as a wasteland with “nothing there”. In fact, to Russians of the Sixteenth Century, Siberia was loaded with one of the most valuable commodities on Earth–fur-bearing mammals.
Fur had always been valuable, but never more so than circa 1600. Western and northern Europe were becoming more prosperous and driving an increase in demand. (Furs had also been popular in China and the Middle East, but never quite so much as in the frigid climes of northern Europe.) And, virtually all of Europe had been deforested or hunted out, driving a decrease in supply.
For the first time, Siberia became worth conquering. And at that particular time in history, Russia was the nation in a position to do it.
Note that the same factor, at the same time, drove the Hudson’s Bay Company to establish control over the otherwise worthless (to Europeans) Canadian north.
Both similar and different. They’re pretty similar to the Eskimo peoples, although they probably only arrived around 700-odd years ago.
Culturally, they aren’t closely related to AmerIndian peoples who lived farther south. It is generally believed that the peoples inhabiting the most northern borders of Alaska and Canada were the last wave of immigration from Siberia.
Not exactly true in two important ways.
In both areas, there realistically was no organized opposition, then or now, and control was never particularly firm. Not that fighting or violence couldn’t occur (they did in both cases, in some times and places). But the population density wasn’t enough to allow level of substantial resistance.
Further, the level of penetration was extremely shallow. The fur trade operation was complex, but involved very few people. Only a trickle of settlers and traders moved into those distant zones.
A note of interest, if I may: as I mentioned in another thread, Japan made an attempt at a land grab in Siberia at the end of WWI. They sent in a total of about 70,000 troops to ostensibly assist the AEF (Siberia) forces sent by Wilson to aid the Czech Legions.
The Czechoslovak Legions, which were created by Czarist Russia, had a major spat with the new Bolshevik government, took over the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and were fighting against Bolshevik troops while making their way east to Vladivostok and were then prevented from returning west. Wilson was somehow convinced to send in troops to aid them, but also to prevent Japan from grabbing a huge chunk of property. I have no idea what Japan’s interest in Siberia was, unless it was to somehow flank China, for whom they had little love.
The whole thing was a total clusterfuck.
The Japanese had several issues that led to their aggression with Russia. They had various fights with Russia, including pasting a Russian naval force just a few years earlier. Short version is that they wanted to force Russia back in order to secure Manchuria, and they wanted to ensure the Russians could never field a Navy from Vladivostok.
Oh, of course. I’m embarrassed to say that I did a term paper on the Russo-Japanese War and should have remembered all that. :o My only excuse is that it was in about 1979.
What was the deal with “electrical firing mechanisms” that let the Japanese beat the hell out of the Black Sea Fleet?
Was it aiming, or communication between spotters and gunners?
Are the Inuit different from the Eskimos? I thought that “Eskimo” had become an un-PC term, and they wanted to be called Inuit instead.
I assure you there are absolutely no capitols in Canada!
When you talk about Canadian expansion, you shouldn’t focus on northern expansion. The main axis of Canadian expansion, like American expansion, was westward not northward.
The two words don’t mean the same thing at all.
Eskimo is a pretty general term, but it isn’t insulting. Inuit refers to only a very specific subgroup of tribal North American peoples, centered around northeastern waters (think Greenland). Eskimo covers almost everyone from Nunavik to Siberia. There are significant cultural differences along the way - I believe there’s some question about where and how some of the peoples came to be there.
Most of these peoples in the United States and Russia don’t take offense at being called “Eskimo”, because they don’t really have a word themselves. Only (some) of the tribes in Canada are Inuit, and they may not like being called Eskimo.
Breaking the central Asian steppes into small pieces doesn’t necessarily get you more defensible pieces.
Along with the pieces everybody else has said about not much competition for huge swaths, there’s the aspect of defensible borders. Much of what was seen as the core of Russia was without easily defensible terrain on it’s borders. The Russians thus had an interest to push the borders out. Depth, and in some cases better terrain to defend along the expanded border, gave the core more security.
The weather still sucks, but there are exploitable resources which not so long ago couldn’t be exploited and now can. Russia’s oilfields aren’t close to any vacation resorts.
But did they swallow?
Doubly interesting because this is easily the best-known classic blunder.
Nevertheless, it was control, and Russia has maintained it ever since. The fur trade is the reason why Russia became so big.
I agree with most of this, but Alaska Natives strongly identify with their groups and subgroups, such as Yup’ik, Alutiiq, Cup’ik, and Inupiaq. Inuit is a broader term that includes the Yup’ik people. As you mentioned, none of them that I’ve known object to the term Eskimo. That seems to be specific to Canada.
Western Canada was basically unsettled until the mid 1880’s when the trans-Canada railroad (CPR) was built to ensure the British/Canadian claim was not usurped by Americans moving north. (Read Pierre Berton’s “The National Dream” and “The Last Spike” about the politics and engineering that went into this). The railroad also cemented the inclusion of British Columbia as a province of Canada, although it was 2000 wilderness miles away from the real Canada.
Same reason - better lands elsewhere, the USA was the only potential rival and was busy with its own expansion (and a war) up until then. Still, north of the arable lands of the prairies, the landscape and population density resembles Siberia. Unless there’s a mining town, or a small Inuit settlement, there’s nothing.
But again, look at the map of Siberia (or Canada). The northern route was treacherous with sea ice when not frozen in. The only real access was from the south or the sides. As mentioned above, it seems Japan and China made half-hearted attempts to take or hold the east coast of Siberia - but in the end couldn’t be bothered, had other priorities.
From the south - China was not about to send massive armies through the Gobi desert or halfway across Asia to take on Russia from the South.
India would have to go through China or the mountains around Afghanistan -then fight through the southern conquests of the Russians… but India was a colony of Britain. Britain apparently did make some effort to go through Afghanistan and found for some reason fighting Afghanis was difficult. Iran/Persia faced the same issues from the south, had better things to do and was outgunned by the Russians in the 1700’s and 1800’s.
Turkey was getting progressively weaker and could not take on Russia very well, let alone do an Alexander the Great march through her eastern territories. France and Britain tried taking on Russia in the south, and had difficulty taking even Crimea. A long march through distant and hostile territory would have been a logistical nightmare - not to mention defending the territory and supply lines afterwards. Ditto for sending a fleet all the way around to the Pacific to try from the east. The USA was busy having bought Alaska, and did not see any need to add Kamchatka to the list - this wasn’t a game of Risk.
Basically, it wasn’t worth it. Same as nobody tried to take the Amazon from Brazil, or Patagonia from Argentina. Too little to bother with, too far away.
I’m confused here. Are you referring to its eastern territories along China and the Pacific, or its western territories bordering Poland, etc., as is implied below (or rather, above)? 
The western and southern territories, Russia seems to display the same pattern as imperial China - they gain (Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Baltic states, etc. when they were strong, and lose them when they are weak. Poland particularly seemed to move back and forth depending on whether Russia or Germany wanted its border territories. SO yes, they did get carved up when weak. Russia is a lot smaller than the USSR and has lost a lot of control over the Eastern bloc countries.
It’s just as everyone says, Siberia was too distant and unimportant for anyone to challenge Russia’s claim, too expensive to try to take from Russia.
As for Russia generally - there are not any natural borders that would stop the stronger conqueror of the moment from taking the whole western area, so logically, the strongest group eventually took the whole region. England has the channel, Germany has the Alps and the Rhine valley (a steep gorge in places) Italy has oceans and the alps, Spain has the Pyrenees, etc. Generally once a territory is taken a good defensible border like a mountain range or wide water body or narrow passage makes it hard for someone to come in and take over. AS others pointed out, warfare in Russia is also at risk of weather problems.
Much of India wasn’t a British colony for much of the period of Russian expansion: the Maratha and Sikh empires weren’t defeated until 1818 and 1846 respectively. The reason neither the Marathas nor Sikhs were able to push north into Central Asia was the same reason the British couldn’t: the Afghans were in the way.