The Imperiia Project: a spatial history of the Russian Empire

Crimea as Power Hub

When Catherine took possession of Crimea in 1783, it became the anchor of her southern empire, the springboard for her geopolitical ambitions, and the hub of a nascent infrastructure project intended to harness the bounty of the natural world — and, in so doing, transform the tsarist state.
 
Provisioning a new fleet at Sevastopol required the forging of a transportation infrastructure that took rivers as its foundation and defined proximity in relative terms rather than absolute distances. The outcome of this was a new understanding of space that reflected official (and civilian) engagement with – but not necessarily the assertion of dominance over – the maritime world.
 

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