>>2598496The reason is that all of the rivers flow north-south and are therefore not helpful for navigation. Thus all development has to follow road or rail line, and that's a piss poor way to haul bulk goods or do resource exploitation.
I sold construction equipment fluid heaters and helped the actual equipment companies to coordinate installation, service, and operator training in the various post-soviet states from the 90s until our produce went on the sanction lists because Putin pissed in everyone's cheerios because he couldn't get what he wanted by merely poisoning Ukrainian politicians. I kept selling in the central asian republics until 2018, when the company I worked for was bought out by Phillips and Temro.
In the 90s, everyone was poor, but there was hope that things would get figured out and then things would get better, the world would stop leaving them behind. By 2009, quality of life for the workers was worse than Kazakstan, but the people on the take in the government went from using bribery to help keep departments staffed and people fed to accumulating vast wealth and cutting out the others instead of cutting them in. I made a fair number of friends there, but I'm glad I don't have to go back, Russia in 2013 was scarier than Russia in 1993, and in 1993, I had my documents taken by the military and was denied consular access while they detained me for 3 days because no one could believe that an American was be going to road construction sites in Siberia and the guy in the Federal Government of Yakutia who had set everything up couldn't vouch for me because he had spent his "tip" on methylated spirits and nearly died.
