Why is Russia So DAMN BIG? — Transcript

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6. 0:07anyway let's get to it
7. 0:10russia here we go like this page
8. 0:14and this page this is russia it's huge
9. 0:16it doesn't even fit on one of these
10. 0:18pages i ripped the page
11. 0:20let's look at russia
12. 0:33[Music]
13. 0:36but wait yes this is russia but russia
14. 0:39is also this and this
15. 0:43and this this one country encompasses
16. 0:47over a hundred languages
17. 0:49spread across 11 time zones i mean the
18. 0:52place is freaking huge
19. 0:54countries aren't really supposed to be
20. 0:56this big so how did this happen
21. 0:58how did russia become so damn big
22. 1:02[Music]
23. 1:07countries come in all shapes and sizes
24. 1:10you have
25. 1:10really small countries like here in
26. 1:13europe
27. 1:13the country of monaco is tiny it's
28. 1:16literally two
29. 1:17square kilometers like smaller than most
30. 1:19cities now that's obviously an outlier
31. 1:21so let's look at a more average-sized
32. 1:23country like
33. 1:24belgium more like 11 000 square
34. 1:27kilometers
35. 1:27then you have even bigger countries like
36. 1:29france like 550
37. 1:32000 square kilometers over here in the
38. 1:34united states where everything is
39. 1:36apparently bigger you have states that
40. 1:39are bigger than
41. 1:40france like the state of texas is 695
42. 1:43000 square kilometers
43. 1:44all 48 of these continental united
44. 1:46states
45. 1:47are huge by european standards at least
46. 1:50this whole continental united states is
47. 1:528 million square
48. 1:54kilometers so you have all these
49. 1:55different sizes of countries the average
50. 1:57sort of looks like this
51. 1:59and then you have the second largest
52. 2:01country on earth which is
53. 2:02canada huge but now take a look at the
54. 2:06size of the largest country
55. 2:08on earth russia
56. 2:12is huge it is more than double the size
57. 2:15of the continental united states
58. 2:1617 million square kilometers makes up
59. 2:20one-eighth of the total habitable area
60. 2:23on
61. 2:23earth and it's almost double the next
62. 2:27biggest country on this list i mean it's
63. 2:29mind-blowing
64. 2:30russia is a part of europe it also
65. 2:32shares a beach line with turkey
66. 2:34but then you go all the way over here
67. 2:35and it has an extensive border with
68. 2:37china and north korea
69. 2:39[Music]
70. 2:42keep going and it stretches all the way
71. 2:44up here to where you could literally
72. 2:46swim
73. 2:46from russia to the united states
74. 2:48assuming you can swim
75. 2:50you know like two and a half miles so
76. 2:52yeah russia is [ __ ] huge it's
77. 2:55giant but not that long ago russia
78. 2:57wasn't
79. 2:58huge in fact relative to empires and
80. 3:01their borders russia was kind of a small
81. 3:04fish
82. 3:05that's the story i want to tell you a
83. 3:08thousand years ago russia looked like
84. 3:10this
85. 3:10a loose group of slavic peoples who were
86. 3:14a growing and prosperous society here in
87. 3:16eastern europe but they had a pretty
88. 3:18big weakness and that weakness looked
89. 3:21like this
90. 3:22these are flat grasslands which are very
91. 3:26easy to cross if you're an army looking
92. 3:29to
93. 3:29pillage land and that's exactly what a
94. 3:32group of horse-riding warriors did
95. 3:34these guys were the mongols and they
96. 3:36basically used this path
97. 3:37of flat grasslands to traverse across
98. 3:40asia and expand their empire
99. 3:4240 000 of these mongol guys on horses
100. 3:46with bows and arrows eventually made it
101. 3:48all the way here
102. 3:49to the slavic peoples of russia here's
103. 3:52an image of them
104. 3:53invading the cities and burning them
105. 3:56down conquering these people
106. 3:57look at how scared these people look i
107. 3:59mean i would be too if
108. 4:0140 000 mongols on horseback rode into my
109. 4:04city
110. 4:08anyway so the mongols take over this
111. 4:10little block of slavic people
112. 4:11and it really weakens their society it
113. 4:14breaks up all the cities that were sort
114. 4:16of collaborating with each other
115. 4:17and now they're paying taxes to the
116. 4:19mongols like this
117. 4:20empire that was from super far away like
118. 4:23on the other side of the world
119. 4:24but there was one city in this area that
120. 4:27was
121. 4:28particularly ready to fight back they
122. 4:30were quietly
123. 4:31getting more powerful this city was
124. 4:33called muscovy
125. 4:35or moscow eventually and it became the
126. 4:37regional epicenter for
127. 4:39trading fur which is a thing that was
128. 4:42becoming all the rage in europe
129. 4:44moscow was also learning how to use
130. 4:46gunpowder and guns and technology from
131. 4:49europe
132. 4:49and before long they were able to punch
133. 4:51back against the mongols
134. 4:53whose big ass empire was getting really
135. 4:56big and hard to maintain and it was sort
136. 4:58of starting to crack
137. 5:00and moscow was there to take advantage
138. 5:03of this
139. 5:03i mean let's be honest there's only so
140. 5:06long you can keep an
141. 5:06empire that looks like this together way
142. 5:10too big i mean this is the biggest
143. 5:11land empire in history but it didn't
144. 5:14last long even though they had these
145. 5:16badass warriors on horseback anyway so
146. 5:19yeah moscow started punching back
147. 5:21they had fur money and they had
148. 5:22gunpowder and they were having success
149. 5:25pushing the mongols out and moving east
150. 5:30one thing's for sure said moscow which
151. 5:32was soon becoming the russian empire
152. 5:34we're not gonna let anyone sneak up on
153. 5:37us again like the mongols did and
154. 5:39everyone over here sort of
155. 5:40chuckled and european and said don't you
156. 5:42realize that the only way to keep people
157. 5:44out is to have like
158. 5:45mountains and water to protect you and
159. 5:48the russians were like
160. 5:49oh yeah you mean like these and the
161. 5:52europeans were like
162. 5:53nice so moscow which was just a city but
163. 5:56is now becoming the russian empire
164. 5:58starts expanding towards these mountains
165. 6:01and soon they have
166. 6:02like a nice empire-sized set of borders
167. 6:06some mountains for protection they have
168. 6:08an economy of fur they have technology
169. 6:11and commerce they're getting rich
170. 6:13things are looking good for russia but
171. 6:15wait a minute can we overlay that green
172. 6:17layer on the map that shows the super
173. 6:20highway of grasslands that the mongols
174. 6:22used to invade yeah that one
175. 6:24that one ugh look there's a flaw in the
176. 6:26plan
177. 6:27nice try russia but you see that this
178. 6:29natural border
179. 6:30which is great has a huge gap of flat
180. 6:33grasslands that people can easily pass
181. 6:36directly on their way to moscow
182. 6:40so it's the middle of the 1500s moscow
183. 6:42has beat back the mongols
184. 6:43is expanding east they're doing their
185. 6:45fur thing
186. 6:46they find kind of a natural border but
187. 6:48it doesn't really work
188. 6:50so they're still looking for a natural
189. 6:52border or water or something to buffer
190. 6:54their country to the east
191. 6:56and then this terrible guy comes into
192. 6:58power
193. 6:59his name was literally ivan the terrible
194. 7:02and
195. 7:02he had some pretty big ambitions for
196. 7:05expanding russia he's like dude we don't
197. 7:06need to stop at these mountains
198. 7:08let's see how far we can push this thing
199. 7:10east way past the mountains
200. 7:12what he finds on the other side of these
201. 7:13mountains is a very sparsely populated
202. 7:16land of ice called siberia
203. 7:19there wasn't a lot of people here and
204. 7:21the people that were there weren't super
205. 7:22resistant to this russian
206. 7:24takeover the main thing that the
207. 7:26russians had to fight against was
208. 7:27the cold but with cold comes furry
209. 7:31animals who have
210. 7:32thick coats of fur which again was
211. 7:34incredibly valuable in european markets
212. 7:37and that helped
213. 7:38fuel this race to just keep going
214. 7:42east
215. 7:44[Music]
216. 7:55is it just me or they sort of
217. 7:56overcompensating like yeah we get it you
218. 7:58got invaded by the mongols and like you
219. 8:00want to like
220. 8:01make sure it doesn't happen again but
221. 8:03like settle down they just kept moving
222. 8:05east
223. 8:05until eventually they reach the pacific
224. 8:07ocean the edge of the world
225. 8:12but they didn't stop there they just
226. 8:13kept going
227. 8:16i mean listen this is so far away from
228. 8:19the original starting point of moscow
229. 8:21and it started to get to the point where
230. 8:22the government back in moscow was sort
231. 8:24of sending out expeditions
232. 8:27not really sure what they were doing and
233. 8:29what they were taking over because they
234. 8:30couldn't really like stay in touch with
235. 8:32them
236. 8:32they were just sort of hoping for the
237. 8:33best after one russian dude
238. 8:35went out on an expedition and conquered
239. 8:37some remote city in the far east
240. 8:40a government official back in moscow
241. 8:42said nobody really knows
242. 8:43why he did that and to what end
243. 8:47there is however something erotic taking
244. 8:50place
245. 8:50in the borders of our empire
246. 8:54erotic i guess that's one way to talk
247. 8:57about it
248. 8:58but here's the most interesting part to
249. 9:00me about
250. 9:01this russian imperialism that is very
251. 9:03different than most imperialism that
252. 9:05i've
253. 9:05looked into when the russians would find
254. 9:07a tribe or a people or
255. 9:09culture that was very different than
256. 9:10theirs because they were so far from
257. 9:12home
258. 9:12they first tried to negotiate with them
259. 9:14and convince them to join the russian
260. 9:17empire if people resisted it got very
261. 9:19predictable
262. 9:20imperialism very quickly but a lot of
263. 9:22tribes didn't resist
264. 9:24and they found it beneficial to be a
265. 9:26part of this growing empire
266. 9:28so this empire grew without a lot of
267. 9:30conflict and in the process
268. 9:31enveloping a lot of cultures that sort
269. 9:33of kept their identity their language
270. 9:35their culture
271. 9:36far far away from moscow because of this
272. 9:39russia today
273. 9:40is yes this huge landmass but perhaps a
274. 9:44better way to look at it
275. 9:45is this
276. 9:51[Music]
277. 9:58russia today is divided into 85
278. 10:01territories
279. 10:0222 of these territories are actually
280. 10:05called
281. 10:06republics they have their own official
282. 10:07language their own legislature
283. 10:10and basically are totally independent
284. 10:12from russia except for in
285. 10:14international affairs it's like 22
286. 10:17countries
287. 10:18within a country all with their own
288. 10:20unique style
289. 10:21so yeah while russia is this
290. 10:24there's also other versions of russia
291. 10:27and i want to show you some of those
292. 10:33stop one let's look at the republic of
293. 10:35sakha
294. 10:37it's located way in the east and it's
295. 10:40huge 3.1 million square kilometers
296. 10:43massive this place is in a time zone six
297. 10:46hours ahead of moscow
298. 10:47the people here don't look like putin at
299. 10:50all
300. 10:50their ancestors are not from the
301. 10:53original moscow russia
302. 10:54area and they speak their own northern
303. 10:57siberian
304. 10:57turkic language as well the capital of
305. 11:00this russian republic
306. 11:02is way up here it's called yakutsk it's
307. 11:05the coldest
308. 11:06large city on earth with an average
309. 11:08temperature of minus eight degrees
310. 11:10centigrade
311. 11:11and this whole region is full of these
312. 11:13giant holes
313. 11:15in these holes they're looking for
314. 11:16diamonds 25 of the world's diamonds are
315. 11:18mined
316. 11:19in this republic so yeah this is russia
317. 11:23next stop down here is dagestan which
318. 11:26borders the countries of azerbaijan
319. 11:28and georgia the climate here is so
320. 11:31different than what i think of when i
321. 11:32think of russia it is hot
322. 11:34and dry and people here speak 13
323. 11:37different
324. 11:38official languages besides russian plus
325. 11:41there's a bunch of unofficial languages
326. 11:43and 83 of the people here identify as
327. 11:45muslim
328. 11:46which again like i don't think of
329. 11:48muslims in russia
330. 11:50but this is russia it's right next to
331. 11:52chechnya which is
332. 11:54another part of russia which is
333. 11:55politically and culturally very much
334. 11:57doing its own thing the people here
335. 11:59declared independence in the 90s
336. 12:01which caused rebel groups to militarize
337. 12:04and then there was
338. 12:04war and terrorist attacks and people
339. 12:07died and
340. 12:08putin may or may not have planned a
341. 12:10bombing to
342. 12:11frame chechnya and terrorists to then go
343. 12:14to war with them so he'd get approval
344. 12:15rating so he could take over the country
345. 12:20no no wait no i'm not going down the
346. 12:22freaking rabbit hole i'm doing one of
347. 12:24those fun geography videos where we talk
348. 12:25about cultural diversity
349. 12:27and and like borders and history and not
350. 12:29this stuff come on
351. 12:31just this once can i just go into a
352. 12:33video without having to talk about the
353. 12:34fact that
354. 12:35some people are really terrible anyway
355. 12:38so
356. 12:39dagestan down here has all these
357. 12:41different languages and people
358. 12:42so different than what i think about
359. 12:43when i think of russia plus i mean
360. 12:45look at this fashion culture okay so
361. 12:49there's a republic here right on these
362. 12:51mountains these mountains that we talked
363. 12:52about that were sort of a good natural
364. 12:53border but had a big hole in them
365. 12:55the ural mountains this is the comey
366. 12:57republic the main thing about this
367. 12:59republic
368. 12:59is it doesn't look like the sort of ice
369. 13:03swept
370. 13:03moscow streets that i'm used to of
371. 13:05russia this place is known for its
372. 13:07natural
373. 13:07beauty beautiful landscapes and where
374. 13:10the gulags were the brutal russian
375. 13:13prisons
376. 13:14during the soviet times where they would
377. 13:16do terrible things anyway there's these
378. 13:17beautiful rock formations that are super
379. 13:19unique
380. 13:20and people aren't supposed to climb on
381. 13:21them because there's some legend and
382. 13:23it's bad luck but of course
383. 13:24foreigners show up and do stupid things
384. 13:26and they couldn't resist and here they
385. 13:28are
386. 13:28anyway this is russia okay
387. 13:31a couple more you have this republic of
388. 13:33kamikia you just need to look
389. 13:36at this place and its people to know
390. 13:38that this feels
391. 13:39very different than what you think of as
392. 13:41russia and yet
393. 13:42this is russia mother russia has been
394. 13:46sort of brutal to these people over the
395. 13:48years trying to erase their culture but
396. 13:50even still they persist last one i want
397. 13:53to talk about
398. 13:54is called tuva it's down here here's
399. 13:56putin visiting
400. 13:57tuva a while back this is another place
401. 13:59where russian ethnicity and language
402. 14:02is a minority the people here are more
403. 14:04related to the mongols
404. 14:06and they speak a turkic language called
405. 14:08tuvan which sounds like this
406. 14:15so is the upshot here is that this is
407. 14:18russia
408. 14:18but so is this and this and this and
409. 14:21this
410. 14:22russia got really big as they were
411. 14:24searching for a border
412. 14:25and for fur and they just kept expanding
413. 14:28their empire
414. 14:29enveloping all of the people and
415. 14:31cultures that came with it
416. 14:33[Music]
417. 14:35okay let me just be clear about
418. 14:36something russia is giant
419. 14:38this video is not 15 hours long
420. 14:41and so i was able to give a very brief
421. 14:44overview of the history
422. 14:45the history is so much more
423. 14:47mind-bendingly
424. 14:49complicated it's like game of thrones on
425. 14:50steroids not to mention
426. 14:52today's russia is also so much more
427. 14:55diverse
428. 14:56like a mosaic of cultures and languages
429. 14:58that i was able to give a little
430. 14:59overview for but i know that a lot of
431. 15:01you watching are thinking why isn't he
432. 15:03mentioning
433. 15:04fill in the blank i want to hear from
434. 15:05you like what are the parts of russia
435. 15:07that you know about that i didn't
436. 15:08mention here
437. 15:09that are the most interesting or the
438. 15:11most surprising that are
439. 15:13more different from the russia that we
440. 15:15sort of think of
441. 15:16let me know in the comments i got i got
442. 15:17fascinated with russia as we did the
443. 15:19navalny video a while back
444. 15:21and i'm now becoming deeper and deeper
445. 15:25into this place and where it came from
446. 15:27and what it looks like today
447. 15:28i've never visited and i want to so
448. 15:31maybe i can't though because i did that
449. 15:32navalny video
450. 15:33and they'll be angry at me if i go there
451. 15:35anyway i hadn't thought about that
452. 15:40[Music]
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