The Entire History Of RUSSIA In 45 minutes

In 1867, Russia sold a piece of land almost five times the size of Germany for about 2 cents an acre. The buyer was America. The land was Alaska. And a few decades later, people found gold there, then oil. But here's what's strange. Russia barely noticed because even without Alaska, Russia is still the biggest

country on Earth. Look at this map. See this giant shape stretching from Europe all the way to the Pacific Ocean? That's one country. When people on this side are getting into bed, people on this side are already starting tomorrow. In the last 1,100 years, this land has been ruled by Viking warlords, Mongol khans,

a tsar who killed his own son, a 6-foot-8 giant who also killed his own son, a German princess who overthrew her own husband, and a man who deleted his friends from photographs. Honestly, Russian family dinners must have been terrifying. And here's the part nobody tells you. Russia keeps running the same loop. Everything falls into chaos. One

man grabs total control. The people trade their freedom for order. Then that man, or the system he built, pushes too far. Everything collapses, and the loop starts all over again. Vikings, Mongols, tsars, communists. Different costumes, same loop. So, how did a bunch of quarreling forest tribes become the largest country in human history? And

why can Russia never escape that loop? Let's go back to the very beginning. About 1,200 years ago, the land we now call Russia was just forests, swamps, and rivers. Lots and lots of rivers. Living along them were tribes called the East Slavs. They farmed, they hunted, they traded fur, and they had one big

problem. They could not stop fighting each other. According to Russia's oldest history book, the tribes got so sick of it that they did something completely bizarre. They wrote to the Vikings and asked them to come and be the boss. Okay, the letter. Dear Vikings, our land is big and rich, but nobody is in