Merkel Is Getting Me All Hot And Bothered

[gaelic cowboy]

And Russia has the mighty Volga flowing through its heartland and into the Caspian Sea for the lucrative trade with Iran.

But Russian habitation is further west and north and and it's really productive agricultural areas are further south and southwest effectively there was no one there to trade with Iran and they faced west and east as a landpower both of them.

Also Russia has always felt and acted like a landpower trading with Iran while possible was not there priority. There priority was ensuring the regime didnt collapse trying to compete with richer western europe or get eaten by the eastern hordes.

But the point is that you can get rich even as a dedicated landlubber.

I never said you couldnt it's just generally easier to be rich if you have a maritime coast you can actually use, it doesnt take a genius to figure out a ship load of fur is worth more to a nation than a cartload.

Not really, especially since we had little to offer to one another: we didn't need their furs, and they didn't need our furs. Timber? No, plenty of that on both sides. Some agricultural produce from the Deep South, yes, but that's it really.

I said later Canada integrated with the USA as in 19th century early 20th before that all trade went back to the imperial core from her expansive coastlinies and the Hudson river.