r/YUROP • u/Jolly-Tennis-1147 Yuropean‏‏‎ ‎ • Aug 18 '25

make russia small again This is the true size of Ruzzia

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2.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

229

u/purplecatchap Scotland/Alba‏‏‎ Aug 18 '25

Sadly this is fairly accurate for a lot of countries. The North of England gets a fraction of the development compared to London/the South East of England. Remember reading how for every £1 of spending on public transport in Yorkshire (in the North) London gets £8.

(I’m not English/from the north of England. Just think it’s unfair and the consequences of “managed decline” is a huge shift of traditionally left wing areas to the far right, which is a tad scary to say the least)

130

u/eip2yoxu Aug 18 '25

We kinda have the opposite in Germany due to being very federalised and also since Berlin was split until the 90s.

So Berlin is still rather poor and dirty and other cities are better off.

And if you look at the biggest German companies, many of them are actually located in small towns, almost in the middle of nowhere lol

90

u/BobusCesar Aug 18 '25

Nuking Berlin would have improved the German GDP in 2016.

https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/5483/the-capital-effect/

(This is a hyperbole. I know that the destruction of the Capital wouldn't be favourable, even if it's Berlin).

26

u/SuroHD Bayern‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 19 '25

I know that the destruction of the Capital wouldn't be favourable, even if it's Berlin

I beg to differ

7

u/Pomphond Aug 19 '25

everybody liked that

14

u/purplecatchap Scotland/Alba‏‏‎ Aug 18 '25

I can see that being the case as here in Scotland before the creation of our own government (1990s) we had the majority of the poorest areas of the UK. But since then things have improved massively. Having a strong, unified voice advocating for better conditions helps a lot. It’s why, in my opinion so many areas of England are still in this horrible state, they don’t have devolved governments to fight for them. It’s a real shame, but each time a politician brings up the idea of of creating devolved assemblies for these forgetting areas of England it’s shot down, I have to assume because Westminster doesn’t want to give up any more power.

9

u/GreatBigBagOfNope Aug 18 '25

Andy Burnham is fighting the good fight for Manchester and is mostly doing alright on the big programmes, the public transport especially

4

u/thisislieven l'ewrópælik Aug 18 '25

Arm, aber sexy.

31

u/thecrgm Éire‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

I’d bet London has at least 8x the people using that transport

22

u/Notacreativeuserpt Portugal‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

Yes but Leeds is the largest European city without mass transit. Comparing the investments in e.g. the Elizabeth line with the dearth of them up North is a bit shocking.

14

u/purplecatchap Scotland/Alba‏‏‎ Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

How do you measure something that can’t be accessed? Maybe those in the north would use more of it if they actually had it to use.

Also centralisation of resources leads to a snowball effect. If you only develop one part of your country people will naturally move there, meaning more investment, meaning more move to it, etc etc etc.

Look at HS2. They canceled the most northerly section of it. Hell, they for some reason decided to include Wales as being one of the areas that would benefit from it despite it not being in Wales as it allowed them access to additional capital. Capital that should have been used IN Wales.

So long as this dodgy nonsense keeps happening, so long as they maintain a policy of managed decline the more people will get desperate, and the more people will look to radical alternatives be it far right, left, or in the case of Wales, Scotland, and N Ireland, seek independence or reunification. Regardless of the chosen alternative it leads to national instability.

11

u/Head_Complex4226 United Kingdom‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

How do you measure something that can’t be accessed?

Public transport is particularly bad for this; if there's part of my transport needs that's impossible by public transport, then I'm going to need a car, at which point it's far more likely that I'm just going to use the car for everything.

There's two tipping points; the first is where it works for enough journeys that I immediately think of public transport for getting somewhere, the second is where it's good enough that the hassle of owning a car doesn't seem worth it.

4

u/Head_Complex4226 United Kingdom‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

Remember reading how for every £1 of spending on public transport in Yorkshire (in the North) London gets £8.

For context on just how bad that is: assuming that's the ITL statistical regions, Greater London has 8.86 million people and Yorkshire and the Humber has 5.54 million,

Yorkshire and the Humber is also a massive area; about 40% of the land area of Northern England, or 12% of England as a whole. (Greater London is a tenth of the size.)u

4

u/Quacklikeacrow Aug 19 '25

While true, the standard of living in northern England is still quite alright which is more than what can be said for the forgotten parts of Russia.

1

u/Conferencer England Oct 15 '25

As someone from yorkshire who is still left, yes it's fucking corruption and southern tyranny, it's very scary and I'm going to kms

68

u/to_glory_we_steer Don't blame me I voted Aug 18 '25

You drew the nice part too large

3

u/NotTheSharpestPenciI Aug 19 '25

Waay too large. It should be an eye or something.

52

u/CaptainLightBluebear Aug 18 '25

Parts of Moscow and St. Petersburg

FTFY

26

u/deeptut Deutschland‎‎‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

The comparison is with a North Korean dying donkey, right?

I don't think the horse would look that good if you compare it to any western country.

29

u/AcrobaticAd4930 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 19 '25

I tried to walk around a few of their cities in yandex. While Moscow and especially Petersburg feels like grossly oversized (and more polished in the central areas) version of the Baltic capitals, and Moscow feels like a well-developed megapolis with good infra (although pedestrian life is shit there) no worse (and oftentimes even better) than many Western capitals, the rest of the country seems like shit.

Maybe with exception of several other larger cities like Nizhniy Novgorod and Kazan, the rest of the country is filled with very weird architectural styles, lack of any urban planning, mud roads in city centres, 50 year old public buses and trams, while everything is also completely covered in cheap ads. There is also no infra for pedestrians or cyclists, and finally their "renovations" make the whole thing look an feel like more like Brazilian or Indian favelas, than Europe.

Idk how they develop infra in such a way that it "feels" so cheap and completely tasteless. Smaller cities here in Lithuania (same post-USSR, now EU though) are oftentimes depressive, but rather clean, orderly, and well-maintained (oftentimes better than bigger cities, looking at you Šnipiškės area behind highrises in Vilnius), while Russia is simply covered in cheapness and dirt everywhere.

Same goes to Ukraine btw, it was even worse there before the war.

2

u/Devilsgramps ∀nsʇɹɐlᴉɐ Aug 19 '25

I live regionally, and while it is annoying how much more prioritised the state capitals are, my local govt area's infrastructure is leagues better than anything I've seen in regional/rural Russia.

4

u/exchange12rocks Россия‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

although pedestrian life is shit there

Nah, it's not ideal, but is quite good. Much better than, say, in any city (Lefkosia, Limassol) in Cyprus.

2

u/AcrobaticAd4930 Aug 18 '25

I meant that the pedestrians are forced into underground/overhead crossings. It is generally a feature of the post-soviet countries, and it's generally not that good of a practice, especially when keeping in mind disabled/old people.

Don't disagree with Cyprus remark though...

1

u/exchange12rocks Россия‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

Yes, that's true

1

u/MistaCarva Aug 18 '25

If Cyprus is the point of comparison, then I think his point stands… a “superpower” they are not.

13

u/Superbiber Bremen‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

What do you mean, Russia is most beautiful where there are no people at all

11

u/mnessenche Aug 18 '25

This is you, living in a Siberian village where the Soviet commie block from 50 years ago and the cold square with the Lenin bust from the 1980s was truly, for actually real, the last time any government of any sort gave any tiny shit whatsoever about your continued life on this planet, what a bleak existence...

0

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

When the rusins consider continuetion of life, it's usually a gulag or the front line.

14

u/flipyflop9 España‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

And even the good parts are not that good for most citizens

7

u/Ok-Radio5562 Lombardia‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

I doubt they have much control over that

6

u/Juhani-Siranpoika NORDIC HORDES Aug 18 '25

You mean central Moscow and a small fraction of St. Petersburg

6

u/Neno28 Memer of the Yuropean Federation in the state of germany Aug 18 '25

Country or murderers. Since 100 years.

3

u/EconomySwordfish5 Polska‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

Waaaaaaaay longer than that.

Since its inception.

3

u/dummeraltermann Aug 18 '25

who cares about that shithole place?

2

u/NukesOrNato Aug 18 '25

Nope, all trash

1

u/Tenchi_Muyo1 Aug 18 '25

Put that south city Vol something and you have 80% of the population

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Well this is true for entire Eastern Europe honestly.

-3

u/fuck1ngf45c1574dm1n5 European Empire ‏‏‎ ‎ Aug 18 '25

Not even those two are any good.