No , I ' m not a historian , and for the reason I have not said even a word about the stuff prior to 11 minute mark . But I know a little for more recent history . Goal of my comment was just to leave some glues about what may or may not see an average russian in this video . As for alternatives For whom , for western people to understand russians , or to russians to understand themselves ? It can be a different thing , specially in nutshell format , which will be never accurate by the nature of that format . For western maybe this video highlights exactly the moments which are important for westerns I can ' t judge about that , because I ' m not sure how they see my country , what they know about it . It may so happen that this video is the best possible for them , I can ' t tell . An example Siberian fur trade in russian version of wiki it says that 1020 % of income was from fur during 16401680 , and be a Governor there for sure was a luxurious positionI can imagine and have read things that let me think that way , because u not just on the border for nothing , but on the border with good income . Gold rush was in 1812 , after allowing people to search gold and dig it , by paying percentage fee . But all that started in 1700 when Peter the Great issued edict to search gold . And compared to west direction , east direction was relatively free from strong forces , and you have military to use when not at war in the west , in south . They had economical reasons , and capabilities to extend to the east , and it was really only one direction with good profiteffort ratio . About police , and different ethnic groups sure it maybe helped , but those times applying military force was not something unusual , and you really do not have to spy , when you can sink them in blood . But spying and diplomacy definitely a help to minimize efforts . And they had some reason for that , U may know it didn ' t helped after all and in 1917 it was revolutionactually two , one was success , but prior of that it was in 1905 , it was in 1825 , it was in 1773 , Time of Troubles 15981613 and not ethnic group where sources of those revolts or problems . With ethnic groups they just had little wars and diplomacy . We have our own version of Indians , and they were pretty successful to defend themselves , and after quite the time military was withdrawn , and including those territories was done in non military fashion . Also you have to understand that had place since 1592 to 1861 , and serves where main percentage of population you do not have to spy them , its their owners problem and you have military for others . Political police as a thing was started in 1826 , so called Third Section it happened after Decembrist revolt in 1825 . This revolt was made by nobility , they had power and they were one of the targets for this 3 sectioncorruption also was the goal . It existed until 1880 , but it failed to achieve the goals , and was merged with usual internal police . During the history there is constantly something happening , and what we have is result of coincidence and opportunity , and decisions , and external influence . I will not wonder if there was such a plan , because sometimes there were great decisions as time has shown . But are they decisions or a result of those and other decisions . Pretty long response for simply No , but I hope it highlight something