Compare And Contrast Russian And Spanish Empires

From the time period of 1450 to 1800, both Russia and the Spanish had been striving to expand their empires to gain a better role in the global economy. For Russia, this expansion was limited to the Eurasian landmass while the Spanish looked to the Atlantic and set up colonies in the New World. Both of these empires broke free from their foreign rulers. Despite different branches of Christianity, within both of these empires' religions played key roles in terms of expansion.
The Russians wanted to increase trade and by doing so they searched for a warm water port which would significantly increase trade. Some explorers sought to expand to the east and eventually south to China to find this port. Catherine the Great imitated some aspects of