system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How did Russia become so much bigger than any other country?
gpt
They conquered *a lot* of sparsely populated land in Northern Asia. 

Much of the landmass of today's Russia is still very sparsely populated and inhospitable. Prior to the 16th and 17th centuries (when Russia began to conquer the small polities that existed in these areas) no major nearby settled state (e.g. China*) had a particular strong interest in these areas.

*In Asia, control over populations was generally viewed as more important than control over land, whereas European states tended to be all about controlling new lands, even sparsely populated ones, in that time period.