Why did peter the great believe that Russia's future depended on having a warm-water port?

Answer 1

A warm water port is essential to getting shipping and fishing boats in and out when other ports are frozen over in the winter.

Answer 2

Peter the Great founded Saint Petersburg on May 16, 1703 because he needed a fortress to protect the Swedish land he'd recently conquered. In 1712, he declared Saint Petersburg the capital of Russia, but as of 1918, Moscow became (and is still) the capital of the Russian Federation.

Answer 3

A "warm water port" refers to a port that does not freeze over in winter. Before Russia began the expansion that ultimately created the Tsarist and Stalinist empires, its only port, Arkhangelsk, was frozen solid from December to April.

For this reason, Peter the Great had trouble, especially with primitive shipping, in keeping the Russian Navy working. A warm water port would have allowed Russia to keep its navy in better condition (and training), and a strong navy, Peter the Great knew, was valuable to gaining resources and conquering territory in newly-explored Siberia. Even more than in European Russia, Siberia's ports were frozen for most of the year: on the Arctic Ocean they were ice-bound from mid-October to mid-July, and even in southern Siberia Vladivostok froze over at least in February and March. (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, on the far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, was and is ice-free for almost the whole year, but limited as a naval port because of the impossibility of land connections to major population centres.).

The result was that Russia's Tsars, once they had fully conquered Siberia, sought to expand into China and even Japan (Kushiro is more northerly than Vladivostok but ice free all year round) so that they could establish a stronger navy and have a chance of using Siberia's Natural Resources to build a larger empire.

Some have even argued that the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan was an attempt to obtain a warm water port in the Arabian Sea, though I have read that Soviet archives do not support this view and that Moscow only decided to invade Afghanistan when the PDPA was threatened.

Answer 4

Because Russia at that time had only one warm water port, port Archangel, and the rest were frozen a lot of the time, meaning no ships could get in, which meant very little trade, which hurt the economy.

Answer 5

Russia's ports froze over in the winters and brought the economy to a halt.