Imagine you live in a fortress overlooking the Moskva River. The Russian word for fortress is kreml, so let’s call it the Kremlin. Your name might be Ivan Grozny (the Terrible), or Nikolai or Alexander Romanov or Joseph Dzhugashvili (Stalin) or Vladimir Putin. But if you live and work in that fortress, your view of the world, whatever the century, will be much the same.
Indeed, the forces of geography and history are so fundamental to the Russian psyche that we might even say we are talking about Putin’s DNA. When he looks out those crenellated windows, even if subconsciously, he will see and feel the weight of climate and geography. He will also be aware of centuries of conflict
