Recent content by serebryakov

No, it could not. That USSR was on the brink of economic collapse by that time is only a half of the problem. The second half was that there were no people in power who could look at it critically, nobody who could steer the economic system onto a different direction. They - how do you say it...

Ok, I'll bite. First, you impression is thrice wrong (because it conflates non-contemporary elements, because it implies that our aristocracy was somehow of a different ethnic stock than its serfs, and because our expansion went more on the "We are the Borg" model). Second - yes, we could have...

The effects would depend mostly on why exactly there was no Time of Troubles. Was there an unbroken line of succession to the Riurikovich line? (Through which one of Ivan the Terrible's sons? Ivan and Dimitri both had some chances of surviving, and Fyodor could sire a son). Or do you butterfly...

OTL Russia had a surplus of land. This one, AFAIR, sorta stops at Yaik/Ural River, but includes what we consider now the Ukraine. So it did have all prerequisites for an early population boom in form of fertile land, it did not suffer population drain from slave raids - and people tend to take...

Er... depends on your definition of "channel". If you mean "a way to transport cargoes from Baltic to Black Sea by water", then it exists since 1952 (if I'm not mistaken), when Volga–Don Canal was built at last (you go from St-Peterburg to Volga by Mariinsk Canal System (1810), down the Volga...

I begin to get the feeling that this could devolve into something like a white supremacist's wet dream: there are much more western Europeans and somewhat less... well, everybody else. A horrible thought: poison gas. Against "native uprisings". Or just to "cleanse the land from subhuman peoples...

You'll get vitalism disproved (in chemistry) somewhat earlier. Not sure if that would mean much for philosophy. But fertilizer industry, vitamins - hell, you'll get sulfonamides by 1900! That will mean that countries that have both the technology and industry to use the technology will get huge...

Actually it is Spanish historical film in Russian translation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirant_lo_Blanc_(film) , comp.to http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Византийская_принцесса . BTW, what inventions do you need to get authentic Russian names for? Maybe I'd be able to help?

It may well retain its historical Swedish name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyenschantz , which in Russian vernacular was mostly contracted to Канцы/Kantsy (sounds almost like Kontsy(the Ends)). If you mean an earlier POD, then Ust-Okhta (meaning Okhta Rivermouth). Or you can butterfly away...

Russia is a LADY. No, really: in Russian, nouns have gender, and "Russia" is feminine.

How about this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Pozharsky ? A bit too honour-bound, but...

The problem is, at its root, economic. You can't get a regional power (for any value of "regional" and "power") without a population base and/or trade. It's extremely hard to support a decent population on such a poor soil in a cold clime (there is a reason why Novgorod never amounted to much in...

Evidently my English is not as fluent as I thought. In this system tsar takes monastic vows _after_ he has children, immediately after the former Patriarch passes away. If he has no children at the moment... well, that's what younger branches of the family are for.

Easy. Start with this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Filaret_of_Moscow "From 1619 to 1633 there were two actual sovereigns, Tsar Michael and his father, the most holy Patriarch Filaret". Let him have the bright idea to make patriarchy de-facto hereditary: so after the death of...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinisation_(USSR) http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Русская_латиница And yes - this project was aborted in 1930, almost as soon as it began, but it did really exist as a parn of Latinization campaign. Later it turned other way around - they changed all Latninzed...