Geography

The largest, most powerful and only places tourists would commonly be allowed to go to is Moscow and Leningrad(which is now St Petersburg), and there was a very large Public Transit System. At the peak of the USSR, it spanned 11 timezones, but couldn't grow crops often, and few crops could be grown, due to the long winters. There were also large amounts of resources, such as coal, iron, oil, natural gas. Most people lived on the West end of the country, near Moscow.

The collapse was very messy, leaving small unrecognized countries, that ended up stuck to another country, in reliance on aid from Russia to stay afloat, such as Pridnestrovie, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. These small areas were annexed by the Soviet Union early on in order to spread Soviet influence, and trying to claim the neighboring countries into the USSR.