Geography

 

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina
She's a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize
She'll take you for a ride on a slow boat to China
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Geography is destiny.

The capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. The financial capital of the United States is New York City.  The entertainment capital of the United States is Los Angeles. The capital of Country Music is Nashville, etc.

The capital of the Russian Federation is Moscow.  The financial capital of the Russian Federation is Moscow.  The entertainment capital of the Russian Federation is Moscow.

The United States has a polycentric geography.  There is not one major city or metropolitan region.  There are several.  The Russian Federation has a monocentric geography.  There are really only two major metropolises in the Russian Federation: Moscow and St. Petersburg/ Leningrad/ Petrograd.  That second city by its original name was the capital city of the Russian Empire when Tsar Peter the Great desired to create a European Capital.  It is probably convenient to consider Moscow and Petrograd as one region

If there is a single center, it becomes possible for one faction, or man, to dominate and control that center.  If that faction, or man, acts crazy, then the whole country may act crazy.  In the United States, if one man or faction controls one city, there are still centers that can be control by the opposition, which can then act as a check to that craziness.

There was more than one center in the Soviet Union, but these centers were in fact the major cities of conquered countries that were once part of the Russian Empire: Kviv/Kiev, Baku,  Kharkov, and Odessa in Ukraine; Minsk in Belarus; Baku in Azerbaijan; Tashkent in Uzbekistan; etc. Thus when they were no longer a part of Russia, there was no check on Moscow.

If there is a flash point that should concern us all, it is the isolated Russian Federation enclave on the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad.  This was once the East Prussian city of Königsberg that was captured  by the Soviet Union during WWII and became a major naval base.  If the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine because it feared it might join NATO, what must it think about this mostly military base that is surrounded by NATO countries.