GEOGRAPHY IN RUSSIAN HISTORY 23 



mileage as 46,839, of which 60 per cent, belongs to the state. Russia 

 stands next to the United States in mileage. And added to this is the 

 enormous extent of her navigable waterways aggregating 102,600 

 miles. On the whole Eussia combines a most marvellous system of 

 transportation, almost bewildering in its variety of medieval and 

 modern traffic methods; caravans, motor-vans, barges, vessels with in- 

 ternal combustion engines and up-to-date steam railroads. 



The center of the system is not Petersburg but Moscow, the city 

 also most intimately identified historically with the rise and growth of 

 the nation. There are only two important economic areas of Russia 

 that Petersburg can reach without passing through Moscow, and even 

 these are more closely allied to Moscow than to the northern capital. 

 Geography, and by this I mean location as well as resources, has not 

 only kept Moscow on a level with her rival, but guarantees without 

 gainsay to raise her far above the city of Peter in the future. The 

 ecnonomic progress of the present and even more so of the Russia of 

 to-morrow lies not in the region of Petersburg but in the center and 

 south, that is nearer Moscow. The industrial areas from Poland to 

 the southeast through Tula, Ekaterinoslav to the mines of the lower 

 Don, the largest coal-producing fields of Europe; the Baku oil fields; 

 the Caspian and lower Volga fisheries; the Transcaspian trade; the 

 commerce of the Black Sea and the Bosphorus ; and the proximity of the 

 Moscow government to the great agricultural area of the Black Earth 

 Belt, all afford a sound economic basis for the supremacy of the old 

 capital. Bef ore'her the bureaucratic city on the banks 'of the Neva must 

 sooner or later surrender an ascendancy made by man in defiance of 

 geography. Besides, the movement of population in Russia is south- 

 ward. Incidentally too it is worthy of note that the development of 

 industrialism and commercialism at Moscow has already transformed 

 the politics of this cradle of autocratic Tsardom; Moscow is no longer 

 reactionary but progressive and liberal. 



The progress of Russia has been tremendous in the last decade. 

 The 5"ears since the Japanese war have seen the adoption of a constitu- 

 tional regime, the rapid spread of industrialism, the greatest agrarian 

 reforms since emancipation, and a remarkably intelligent study and 

 handling of the problems of primary education, agriculture and intem- 

 perance. Along with this has come a clear appreciation of the richness 

 of her resources. " In the markets of the world there exists to-day a 

 famine in meat, lumber and breadstuffs," say the Russian economists, 

 and Russia can produce all three to an indefinite amount. 



Russia has a geographic basis for a great nation such as is pos- 

 sessed by no other people unless it be our own. It is wanting however 

 in one important respect, it lacks an adequate coast line. Its outlet to 

 the commerce of the western world is through waters dominated by 



