The Russian Ego Was Trained on the Wrong Map

We all grew up looking at this map of the world which highly distorts northern countries to appear much larger than the are.

The Mercator Projection creates some real delusional perception problems for Northern countries. Yes, it’s a convenient map that normalizes the lines of latitude and longitude into a nice even grid but helps us to forget about Reality—we live on a sphere.

Forget about the fact that most of what lies above the Arctic Circle is vast emptiness, barren, fairly inhospitable and largely unpopulated. It might as well be Mars for humans who like warmth and to grow things and pick fruit from trees. Yes, hardy Native folks do know how to make the most of it but we certainly don’t see bustling cities up there.

Notice the difference between the Real Greenland and Russia vs. the Imaginary ones above.

I think it’s plausible the Mercator Map is responsible for a certain percentage of the Imperial Mindset that has plagued Russia and is currently ruining it under fragile, diminutive shorty, V. Putin. Being tiny, he sees everything as big, naturally. So the Mercator Map really feeds his insecure ego and makes him believe Russia is far bigger and more relevant than it is. Given that most of it is wasteland it’s no surprise that the Russian economy is smaller than Italy’s which you can see is a mere blip on the map.