Why does Russia always lag behind in development from Western countries?

Especially it concerns scientific and technical progress, economy and standard of living

Because it's an eastern country

I heard such a version that the blame for everything is Orthodoxy, but how true is this?

>always

It doesn't.

Unironically communism
Under the last Tsar, Russia was industrializing
Under Peter the Great, Russia left it's agricultural roots

50 years of pure communism

Under tsarism, Russia was rather poor, and still the only country where at the beginning of the 20th century there was an absolute monarchy before the 1905 revolution

It had an absolute monarchy which wouldn't allow the competition of an industrial capitalist class which would gain hegemony over it. Nearly all investments were made into war industries and purchasing arms from other countries. As soon as the trans siberian railroad was being built the powder keg of class struggle blew up and they had a revolution.

>I heard such a version that the blame for everything is Orthodoxy, but how true is this?
Nah.
Everyone who tries to reduce thousands of years of geopolitics, history, economy and shit to "muh religion" is an idiot.

My money's on trade routes, for the most part.

> the only country
What about I dunno, China, Persia, Ottomans, Brazilia.

Low population and population density. Population growth is a large driving factor of technological and scientific progress. Higher population and its growth in a limited area also drives the economy and a drive for improved standards of living. That + their shitty location, not enough usable coastline for trade and most of the country being uninhabitable and infertile.

Their country is just too big, if you condensed their population in an area the size of France around Moscow you'd probably have seen a much more modern and advanced country. Moscow and Western Russia is better developed and advanced on par of Western Europe, its just a matter of the eastern parts catching up.

Forgot to add among European countries. In the Ottoman Empire, the constitution appeared thanks to the Young Turks in 1908

Catholic church was a major political and economic power in Europe.
Orthodox churches were a bottom bitches under local kangs

This,projections were good until communism enslaved and permafucked it

>China
>Absolute Monarchy.
The only time absolutism ever occurred in China was under the Qin Dynasty and 2 of the Ming Emperors.

The Mandate of Heaven states that it is the Emperor who has responsibility to Heaven to govern the state wisely. Not that Heaven's mandate allows them to do fuck anything.

They have basically no ports of significance, makes it difficult to do trade, which is where the big money is made.

>implying 1905 changes much
>implying Austria, Germany and Greece weren’t absolutist reigmes
During communism it advanced rapidly because it didn’t have to worry about paying its debts, other times it had a few grand cities but the rest were sparsely populated
Literacy also played a large part, which was created in part by a very small middle class, you’ll see any society that is a step ahead of the rest either conquered intellectuals or had a large class of them

You realise how rich Kiev was right with just a few rivers to navigate
Orthodoxy strengthens a state rather than weaken it because of CaesarOPapism, you have all these monasteries you can take from at any time and be totally fine, whilst in Catholicism you get excommunicated, look at how the reformation strengthened royal perogative

>Russia was rich and industrializing during cuck tsar regime
this is EXACTLY why multiple large protests happened during Nicholas II rule and it all ended up in Russian revolution

Before that actually they just brought it back after deposing the sultan.

Because they are mongol rape babies