Agricultural productivity was always a problem in Russia. Even in ~1910, when Russia accounted for ~1/3 of global grain exports, productivity per hectare or per worker was way lower than in Western Europe, and growth was mostly extensive.
Here's some reading for you (pdf).
Improving efficiency...
Cynical as it may sound, but the conditio sine qua non for this is that those pagans stop piracy and leave Baltic trade alone. Spreading Christianity was just an excuse, the real reason was those pagans being a pain in the a**. :D
edit: I'm very sceptical of invoking a 'charismatic leader' to...
I second Baltic Duchy. At that time, quite a lot of land in what is today Estonia and Latvia still belonged to persons of German descent, and Baltic Duchy was meant to protect that status quo.
If you want to expand Lithuania north, you could rather take Inflanty (where German interests are...
One thing is for sure - Fomenko doesn't get to invent much of his New Chronology, because Andronikos Komnenos and Jesus Christ being the same person is one of his favourite claims. :D
There is a little known fact that, in Yalta/Potsdam/other conferences of the time, Soviet Union seemingly in all seriousness asked for a mandate (or 'trusteeship', or whatever) over one (usually not named) of former Italian colonies.
Link:
From encroachment to involvement: a documentary study...
Name of Latvija/Latvia being used when PoD is before 1850; even worse, the name being used before 1850.
The name was coined at some moment around 1850 (conflicting theories exist) but did not come into everyday use at least until 1870.
The rise of nationalism would probably still have brought...
*yawns*
Falsifying evidence is much easier than hiding it from everyone. Those Sithsonians* must be really dumb and very industrious.
* spelling intended :D
In some small country (NIMBY, please :D) a laissez-faire-oriented government decides to get rid of all agricultural subsidies. A bunch of angry farmers carrying shotguns arrive in the capital and install some sort of junta without any specific ideology, just to keep things from changing.
Would...
It's funny. :) and actually not ASB at all.
Some minor details:
* given Stučka's biography, it's very unlikely he would chose to style himself as 'tzar'; rather, 'king' (Latvian - 'karalis'); also, he would have to assume a new name to avoid associations with Peter I of Russia.
* "aid workers"...
The PoD is probably too late to prevent the final partition of Poland in 1795.
French revolution would probably also happen as in OTL.
However, there should be butterflies as to Napoleonic wars; you'd need a coherent version of them before proceeding with maps of Europe, Asia and Africa.
just...
Hardly.
Soviets would rather not support them both out of principle (what? religious fundamentalists?) and out of practical considerations (spread of hard-line Islam threatens their soft belly in Middle Asia). The only case would be if there was a real threat of Islamic republic being replaced...
Not sure about that. The whole region was pretty unstable, so an earlier PoD would have too many butterflies.
I'm inclined to think that Brezhnev dying (or even resigning/forced to resign) earlier, in around 1976...77, could do the trick, leading to a more sensible Soviet policy towards the...