Figure 5.12: Russian imperial expansion, 1300–1945. A series of powerful rulers expanded Russia’s holdings across Eurasia to the west and east. Expansion was particularly vigorous after 1700, when Russia acquired Siberia. Note that the centuries-long imperial expansion was reversed in 1991, when the Soviet Union was disbanded and the new post-Soviet states were created.

[Source consulted: Robin Milner-Gulland with Nikolai Dejevsky, Cultural Atlas of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, rev. ed. (New York: Checkmark Books, 1998), pp. 56, 74, 128–129, 177]