Quote Originally Posted by Hanna
Oh yeah, I definitely knew that about Arkangelsk, and I know that Russia has had problems with access to the the Atlantic etc. Did not know that Karl XII tried to prevent access or what he hoped to gain from that.

So was that the first time Russia got ports on the Baltic Sea then?
Yes, Russia had no ports there prior to Peter.
I think Russia also got some more land on the Baltic after the Winter War with Finland.
Yes it did but it was a rather small patch of land.

From todays' perspective it's seems crazy that Sweden could fight a country like Russia, and during the USSR period it seemed even more absurd.
Russia was weak at that point and even though it had a lot of land its control over the territory was only nominal in some places. Sweden could cut a lot of northern territories in this war.

I remember vividly from school history the teacher explaining that it is literally impossible to win any extended war with Russia because of the "scorched earth method" and that Russia has got used to accepting very large numbers of casualties while at war.
What it takes to win a war? If you're going to conquer all the land it will prove very difficult with a country as big as Russia, but if your goal is to capture only some key territories and crush the opposing army it can be possible. You are victorious if you have achieved your goals, that's all.

It seems like Russia is being attacked, not the attacker in most of the wars that it has been involved in, that I know about. Do you agree or am I mistaken?
Russia had some wars where it was an attacker (well, theoretically, it conquered Siberia, Caucasus, Crimea, parts of Finland, Poland and a great deal of Middle Asia). There wouldn't have been so much land if there weren't any conquests.

Not sure how many real examples there are of this "scorched earth" technique actually being used but I have heard about it many times.
There are few. The most illustrative one is Napoleon's invasion of 1812. He took Moscow without fight but soon he realized that he had nothing to feed the army with. It was a disaster. He brought a huge army in Russia but not very many of them made it home. Most of them died not in a fight but from hunger, cold, diseases, etc.

Perhaps I should watch a war film that is NOT about WW2 but some earlier era. Any good ones?
There is a great mini-series called 'Россия Молодая' (Young Russia). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081924/
It's very well made and I like it very much. If you're interested in Russian history you must watch it. You 'feel' the epoch and you live with its characters when watching it.