Source: Direct comparison of Moscow vs. Saint-Petersburg populations.
On the eve of World War I, Saint-Petersburg was bigger than Moscow: 2.1M to 1.8M. It had a more developed and sophisticated economy, and was drawing in more people, though this was partially canceled out by the higher fertility rate in more religious and traditionalist Moscow. SPB had an order of magnitude more financial activity, though Moscow was a major manufacturing center. Perhaps also bolder plans on infrastructure development; construction on the original Moscow Metro began in 1914, while SPB had no metro plans at the outbreak of WW1. There were some discussions in Nicholas II’s circles about moving the capital back to Moscow, in line with neo-Muscovite artistic sentiment. Long shot, but if that had happened, Moscow and SPB would have ended up truly level pegging. But otherwise, the ~80% ratio between them would have likely remained.
Relative population of Moscow vs. Saint-Petersburg.
After Bolsheviks moved capital to Moscow, SPB and Moscow swapped positions while keeping the same approximate ratio, though now loaded in favor of Moscow.
However, it was really the Siege of Leningrad that permanently displaced the “northern capital” as a competitor to Moscow. Perhaps that is its single biggest Big Historical impact: Raising Moscow’s relative lead over SPB from ~25%, to ~75%-100%.
Ever since, SPB has been been more Russia’s biggest millionik than its “northern capital”. The post-Soviet period beat in the last nail in its coffin; many more repatriates from the former USSR, as well as Russians moving in search of higher quality of life, went to Moscow, as opposed to banditized SPB. As a result, whereas Saint-Petersburg has increased by a factor of just slightly more than 2x since its pre-revolutionary population peak at 2.4M in 1916, Moscow has exploded sevenfold. Consequently, Moscow now completely overshadows SPB in economics, politics, and science production, with SPB only remaining competitive in culture and tourism.
In the context of the Sixth Proof of God theory, perhaps this (relative) collapse was divine punishment for having hosted the Bolshevik Revolution.
Incidentally, if you’re in Saint-Petersburg, one sight worth passing by is a monument to the cats Elisey and Vasilisa (Malaya Sadovaya St, St Petersburg, 191023). If you manage to throw a coin onto the ledge holding them, you will increase your character Luck stat. I was told that they were commemorating the countless Unknown Cats eaten during the famine imposed by the German blockade, though what I now read on the Internet is that they are actually tributes to Siberian cats brought into Leningrad in 1943 to control the city’s rampant rodent population, which had exploded in the absence of their natural predators in the previous two years.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
I think if you include the metropolitan area of both cities, Moscow leads by almost 3:1 compared to St. Petersburg.
Here is my rough sketch (without any claims to be entirely accurate) of how the population including suburbs has developed:
https://i.ibb.co/bRTRWTd/msp.png
Why not move the capital back to St Petersburg? Then Russia will have two “Alpha” cities rather than just Moscow, with SPB left behind as a mere millionik.
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2018t.html
Moscow is ranked here as Alpha, number 13 in the world sandwiched between major global cities Chicago and Toronto.
St Petersburg on the other hand is classified as a lowly “Gamma.” It looks to be ranked about 150th in the world between — wait for it — Santo Domingo and Guadalajara. ¡Ay caramba!
Moving the capital back to SPB would immediately catapult its status up to Beta, and in all likelihood up to Alpha in the near future. And Moscow is too big, established and well-positioned to ever lose its Alpha status even if loses the seat of government.
Then Russia will have a proper ‘Two City System’ like Beijing-Shanghai or Sydney-Melbourne, rather than the current All-Eggs-In-One-Basket system like London or Paris. A gigantic country like Russia should have at least two Alpha cities and moving the capital back to SPB would help turbocharge that process.
So, even before Operation Barbarossa, it looks like the Moscow metro area acquired a decisive lead over the St. Pete’s metro area.
Anatoly, you previously said that it was not unreasonable to see 30-35 million people in the St. Pete’s metropolitan area today in the event that Russia would have avoided decades of Communism and WWII (as well as the capital relocation to Moscow, of course), correct? If so, what percentage of these do you think would have been Eastern Slavs and what percentage of these do you think would have been others (such as non-Eastern Slavs, Caucasians, Central Asians, Balts, et cetera).
I also wonder if having the Russian capital remain at St. Pete’s (and, of course, having no propiska system restricting migration) would have also affected the development and population of the neighboring Baltic states (which might have very well remained part of Russia in this scenario) due to their proximity to St. Pete’s. For instance, might the Baltic states have become vacation destinations for people who would have otherwise lived and worked in St. Pete’s in this scenario?
Or just divert some funds towards it, no need to uproot the Government every time a city falls behind
Riga is ranked higher on that rating in spite of it having more than five times less people than St. Pete’s has! How exactly are these rankings determined?
Good point,
I don’t see Finland or the Baltics moving out of Russia’s orbit with a SPB of even half that size.
Finland might be possible due to them being good fighters (as 1939-1940 showed in real life) and already being alienated by the forced Russification policies of 1899-1905. If Russia manages to flood Finland with millions of Russians, though, then the game would be completely changed.
Permanently keeping the Baltic states–especially Latvia and Estonia–might be easier due to their smaller populations. Of course, a big question would be this: Would Finland or the Baltic states be more attractive vacation destinations for people who live and work in St. Petersburg in this scenario?
Bro, if SPB population is 30-35mil & Russia overall has double then I don’t see Baltics or Finland without 30%+ Russian minorities.
I’d go as far as to say that Russian would be a second language in Scandanavia & Poles would speak it too.
Having 30+% Russian/East Slavic minorities wasn’t enough to prevent Latvia and Estonia from seceding from the USSR in 1991 in real life. Thus, an even higher Russian/East Slavic percentage might be needed there in order to permanently prevent secession–at least without a strong use of force.
St Pete is still respectable in Physics ând the National library is still there.
It is a difficult place to move around and the airport connection is dreadful. This is illustrative of a lack of infrastructure investment. That drop in population was huge. It can be seen in the centre. The modern retail centre has still not expanded to fill 1914 levels. No elite shopping. Despite that, by European standards it’s well placed. #4. Wealthier than Latin America.
In terms of total population? If so, this would be unsurprising given that, by far, Russia is Europe’s most populous country.
Anatoly, just how populous do you think that Constantinople (Istanbul in real life) would have become in a scenario where Russia would have avoided Communism and would have managed to remain in WWI until the very end and thus gotten Constantinople at the post-WWI peace talks? Would its side have been comparable to that of Moscow and St. Pete’s?
30-40% more spread out in a much more populated Baltics would probably hold it.
XYZ’s comment about Russian settlement south into Byzantium is also interesting, would pull settlers who’d go west.
Also I imagine a Sweden that’s 20% Russian at minimum and a Poland with slightly less in this scenario.
Much harder to remove/do something.
Also don’t see USA getting nukes in a scenario without Russian communism.
Not sure about Afghanistan war, Russia may have invaded Pakistan in this scenario.
Also,
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2020/01/27/boris-johnson-suggests-easier-african-immigration-post-brexit/
Great news.
The possibility of Tashkent becoming one of the great Russian cities is underrated. Due in part to Stolypin’s reforms, the Slavic population of Central Asia increased from 400,000 in 1896 to 1.5 million by 1916. While WWI, the Basmachis, & Revolution no doubt reduced the the total, 3.7 million more Slavs settled in the the region from 1926 to 1959. Those settlers were heavily urban.
In an alternate universe where the USSR had never come to be, far more Slavs would have likely settled in Central Asia. The first group would have been driven by the desire for cheap land, and the second (after the introduction of air conditioning) could have been driven by a Russian parallel to America’s sunbelt migration. Tashkent & Samarkand have much better weather than Moscow & St Petersburg. While they lack a port that could have made them the equivalent of Los Angeles, they could have easily been a Russian Phoenix or Atlanta.
http://www.tashkent.climatemps.com/tashkent-average-temperatures-chart.gif
http://www.saint-petersburg.climatemps.com/saint-petersburg-average-temperatures-chart.gif
Even with the various catastrophes that struck the Russian people in the last century, Tashkent was still a third Russian when the USSR collapsed.
There is little reason for Finns to antagonize Russia and vice-versa
Actually the government language in Finland was Swedish so what was being russified was mainly Swedish. A lot of ethnic Finns had at first been for russification under the assumption that it would mean less Swedish and French and more use of Finnish and Russian. Under Alexander II & III it looked like Russia was indeed moving to this direction.
Later they of course did the dumbest possible move and decided to cancel support for both Finnish and Swedish, uniting everyone in Finland in one anti-russification camp. The Bolsheviks saw the opportunity and made the counter-offer of a future socialist Finland with Finnish as the official language and Russian as the main secondary language. This idea became immensely popular with ethnic Finns so the willingness for this cultural orientation was definitely there – too bad it ended up being championed only by the Reds.
The late 19th century was the high point of Germanic pride with German unification & romanticism, industrialization and prominence in science. If Russia had avoided revolution, developed better and St Petersburg would have become a wealthy megacity, Russian would gained massive prestige. It would have created a reverse dynamic where Finns & Balts would feel oppressed by any attempt by Germanic elites to prevent us from learning Russian, much like they now complain about the USSR forcing them to learn Russian instead of English.
Why is it so poor now?
Kazakhstan PPP 28k
Turkmenstan 19k
India 8k
Uzbek 7.5k
Pak 6k
Kyrgyz 4k
Tajik 3.5k
Afghan 2k
Trump visit in late Feb should alter perceptions.
I think a more C Asian Russia would be far more Indophilic than even today
A Russia anchored in the Baltics and in C Asia would neuter both an American & Chinese Empire.
Globohomo would/could not exist and neither Israel.
Russia would basically be world ruler w/o communism.
I don’t think it’s realistic to move the capital to SPB, will involve billions of dollars in spending.
That said, I do hope that the kremlins try to offload some of the sectors in which Moscow dominates off to SPB. For instance, I think the finance sector would be a good candidate. It will take a long time, but might pay off by the second half of the century.
Half of the (4 or so) mosques in both SPB and Moscow were built under the late Russian Empire. So, a LOT. I assume not too dissimilar from Paris if the Caucasians and Central Asians remained within its borders. (But much less if they were were to be given independence, since the Maghreb is a much bigger share of the French population vs. Central Asia/Caucasus relative to Russia, one that includes all/most of UKR/BLR and didn’t suffer from commies/Nazis.
The USSR didn’t have freedom of movement so that didn’t happen. Though there were plans by the 1980s to move Central Asian settlers to Russia’s depopulating villages. One of the few silver linings to the USSR’s collapse.
They were, the Russian nobility had lots of palaces in those regions, many Russian upper bourgeoisie had holiday homes there as well. I assume this would have continued until cheap air flight shifted tourism patterns to the south.
I really have no idea, I suspect it all depends on the details of the post-war settlement and Constantinople’s precise status. Would it be a core city of the Russian Empire? Or would its status be something like Svalbard’s (formally belongs to Russia, inc. military, but anyone can settle there)? Etc., etc. As far as I am aware, none of those details were worked out in any… detail. So its all speculation.
tldr – no oil.
Yes. Istanbul is #1, Moscow #2, London #3, then St Pete. Add Moscow & St Pete together and they have the same weight in population terms as London or Paris relative to their countries.
This is my chance for Spb FTW post. I grew up here and it changed a lot for the better since i left (my last night here before i have to leave for US). I would rate SPB higher than Switzerland where i was stuck for a few weeks for work. Adjusting for weather of course, but last summer Switzerland didn’t even have AC for heat wave, so weather advantages are fleeting.
To be fair i have never really been to Moscow. Oh sure I have been there technically on flyovers and business back in 1998 when i was broke and just did subway to destination. But not really there and explore the town.
That said, highly recommend SPB. I hear its cheaper than Moscow, and it has its charms.
It wouldn’t neuter a British Empire. No communism needs no WW2 = Dominion status rather than complete independence for Empire.
Na, British Empire survived on Indian manpower.
British Army encouraged conversion to Sikhism which is self defeating in long run.
Brit empire was in terminal decline after 1857.
Within 90 years of taking over India they were inviting masses of subcons in.
😉
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2020/01/27/boris-johnson-suggests-easier-african-immigration-post-brexit/
Great news.
A Russian Empire that controls Afghanistan & the Levant/Suez is death for the British.
If British have to give Indians even more rights to keep their loyalty then you get globohomo but limited to Anglos (as it should be)
Either way, not looking good.
You lose in all scenarios LOL.
In terms of God’s punishment SPB is a major candidate. Founded by a Free Mason Emperor, who destroyed the Patriarchate, and built at a pointlessly enormous human cost (some say Peter the Great was an occultist who deliberately wanted a high body count as a human sacrifice, sounds paranoid but he was a Free Mason). The big church in SPB looks like a Greek temple, not like Moscow or Kiev’s Byzantine influenced churches.
I’ve always found it interesting how, as bad as the Russian revolution was, it undid the major compromises that the Russian Empire had as a result of Peter the Great. Patriarchate restored, capital back in Moscow.
In actual results, the Japanese, using British equipment and methods sank a large fraction of the Russian navy.
Afghanistan is where Empires go to die.
As for Suez, next year in Jerusalem.
Not to forget the National Loot Museum 😛
You mean Finland, no? Sweden was never actually Russian to my knowledge.
How many Russians do you think would have settled in Xinjiang and Mongolia had Russia managed to conquer these territories sometime during the 20th century and would have also avoided decades of Communist rule as well as WWII?
I do agree with you about Tashkent and Central Asia in general, though. In fact, Tashkent might have actually been superior to Atlanta (albeit possibly not to Phoenix) since Uzbeks appear to be much less violent than blacks are (but possibly more comparable to Hispanics in the US).
The Parthenon used to be an Orthodox Church until the Turks arrived, then it was a Mosque
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qpE5hNwi618/TMXdceKxKuI/AAAAAAAAKtQ/5EJM0N5BJD0/s1600/panagia+atheniotissa.jpg
Globo-homo will probably turn it into a drag queen museum or abortion clinic
I would presume that in such a scenario Moscow and St. Pete’s would not have anywhere near as much of a terrorism problem as Paris has, correct?
Yeah, keeping Muslims out of the Russian interior was one of the few good things about the Soviet Union–as was the fact that Soviet rule paved the way for the eventual secession of a large part of the (ex-)USSR’s Muslim population–thus ensuring that post-Soviet Russia would not have to rule over anywhere near as many of them as the Soviet Union ruled over.
Interesting. In regards to this topic, it’s worth noting that after looking at some maps, I’ve concluded that Ottoman Armenia’s population expansion potential would have been rather limited even if Russia would have annexed it sometime during the 20th century. After all, there is only a short bit of coastline there and south of that there are a lot of awfully tall mountains. In fact, this is why there are few large cities in that region today in real life–with the largest city in this region (Samsun) not even having one million people. Frankly, I suspect that regions such as the Kuban, Sochi, Crimea, southern Novorossiya, the Budjak, and–if Russia will acquire it–Constantinople will have much more population growth potential in the 20th and 21st centuries in a scenario where Russia doesn’t actually go Communist for several decades.
Well, at the very least, I don’t think that Constantinople’s existing population is actually going to be expelled from there en masse–though some of them might nevertheless decide to voluntarily emigrate from there.
Or natural gas, for that matter.
Does Dominion status imply open borders between Britain and all of its Dominions?
Anatoly, are you familiar with Zipf’s law as related to city size? In a nutshell, the largest city is 2x the size of the 2nd-largest, 3x the third, etc. it works decently well in the US where nyc at 8.5mm is about twice LA at 4.3, and 3x Chicago at 2.8mm.
The law seems to hold for a lot of countries. It suggests that at some point Moscow would be 2x SPB, once the capitol moved.
If much poorer countries such as 1990s Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Burma can successfully pull this off, why not Russia as well? Or do you simply believe that it’s an unnecessary waste of money?
“Where can two British journalists discuss about British Primacy over an artisanal beer, then take two separate taxis to two different Red Light Districts, for a generous helping of Local Culture?” Bonus points, if the locals don’t moan about corruption, while the local pimp bribes the local police.
In the Latin world, the people of the Second City appear little envious PoS. There is a spectrum, with Milan actually having stuff. But people from Lyon and Iasi would mention pointless trivia about their home (or adoptive home) town, as if they matter, from the first few minute after you met them. It’s almost like talking to a a vegan – they will tell you.
People of Barcelona are dangerous imbeciles.
Are the IYIs of SBP moaning about muh capital?
Yes, I’m aware of it, but it’s not a hard and fast law. For instance, Zipf’s law famously doesn’t apply to a significant chunk of the Russian population, since you have Moscow, then SPB… and then a dozen 1.0-1.5M millioniks. It has zero second-order cities like Boston or Philadelphia with 2-5M people.
Yes.
That’s why Anglos lose no matter what.
Which Russian cities do you think are the best candidates to eventually fall into this category–at least once Russian fertility will inevitably increase due to breeders making up a larger and larger percentage of Russia’s total population with every generation?
But at least the Anglos get lots and lots of curry! So, it’s all good, right? /s
What I know about the place is that it’s apparently rather expensive. Tourist trap much?
Anyways please change the name back to Petrograd, german place names in russia are so cringe, ugh
Krasnodar is the only feasible candidate during this century.
https://twitter.com/27khv/status/1176084535752167424
Do you have a more exact prediction as to just how populous Krasnodar is going to become by 2100?
Also, as a side question, which cities in a (Greater) Russia that never goes Bolshevik do you think would have been in the 2-5 million people category by now (as in, by 2020)?
Didn’t we already discuss that? I assume most of the current millioniks would qualify.
To imagine the Parthenon mutilated by ugly icons (such as the one shown above) is really disgusting.
OK, but what about the current non-millioniks in Greater Russia? Would any of them have qualified for this, in your opinion? For instance, Riga or Tallinn or Vladivostok or Khabarovsk?
Vladivostok – probably, Khabarovsk – perhaps not. (Population of Far East may not have been much different because USSR sent many people out there on purpose).
What about in the Baltics?
It being a wrecked tourist trap is far worse
It’s possible that younger people in the Baltics would migrate to prospering St. Petersburg and warm and comfy Odessa, thus slowing growth
So, not even Riga would have actually hit two million people in this scenario?