Quote Originally Posted by rvg View Post
Sure it does. Most of European Russia's important industrial centers are situated on the banks of Volga or its tributaries.
You said it yourself who would they trade with Iran?? You need access to the sea an Russia never had proper access to secure blue water ports with which to trade from.

Except that you're not taking into account that an overland journey would be much shorter than a transoceanic one. A couple of hundred miles on bad roads vs a few thousand miles across the ocean.
All of that is good and such, but the U.S. commodities still have to cross an ocean to be traded.
I think you will find sending a barrel or whatever from America by boat to England will beat a barrel sent by cart from Russia plus they can carry more stuff reducing price and thereby reducing the cost of the voyage.


Russia is and always has been a landpower geography and security considerations have always made it so and it's lack of development has also hampered it.
But this does not mean Russia cannot be powerful chiefly again due to pure size.