There are many reasons why Russia was difficult to govern, such as the size and diversity of the country and many differences in opinions contributed to the resentment of the government which in turn made the country very difficult to govern.
One reason Russia was difficult to govern was because of the size and diversity of it. As the country was so large, and covered almost 23 million square kilometres in 1900, this made it very difficult to govern as it made it difficult for the Tsar to have complete control of a place that was more than 20 square kilometres away. The empire stretched across two continents which meant that millions of the emperor’s subjects had to travel very far to get the other side of Russia. The size of the country also meant that there were many different nationalities and languages within the empire, hundreds in fact. This also made it hard to govern Russia as the people had different opinions on what the empire should be like and so Many resented being dominated by the Russians as they did not agree with the Russian way of ruling. It also meant that an emperor living on the western side of Russia had to ensure he was being obeyed 3,000 miles away which was very difficult. The size of the emperor was one of the main contributions to the difficulty of governing Russia because it also caused a huge difficulty with transport and communication. The terrain was almost impossible to travel across as in the north there was the tundra, with is permanently frozen subsoil which made communication very difficult and almost impossible in winter. There was also the deep woods and forests which meant that very little of the land was suitable for cultivation or transport which made it difficult for the emperor to make sure he was being obeyed on the other side of the country. There were then the deserts which were even more difficult to travel across meaning it was more difficult to govern the wide diversity of the