ABSTRACT
The borders of the former USSR in 1990 were established as the result of several centuries of colonial expansion from the Russian heartland around Moscow in the fifteenth century (Table 7.3). An initial northward thrust extended Russian control to the Arctic coast. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a massive push eastwards took the Russians to the Pacific coast around 1650. In the eighteenth century smaller, but more strategically significant, areas were gained to the west. Finally in the nineteenth century extensive areas were conquered in the Caucasus, Soviet Central Asia and the Soviet Far
East (see Figure 7.4 and Table 7.3). Box 7.1 contains a small selection of views expressed about Russia over the centuries.
