Foreign Policy of Russia under the reign of Nicolas I

In the article the author gives an overview of the Russian Empire foreign policy under the reign of emperor Nicolas I (1825–1855) on the basis of the analysis of the interests of the state carrying out the said policy. The combination of the state interests was determined by a number of factors, among which we can distinguish strategic or economic ones, like, for example, like striving for Black sea channels control or favorable terms of crossing them, and political ones, like preserving balance in Europe, and sometimes even ideological factors, like, for example, struggle against revolution. The beginning of Nicolas reign was marked by backtracking from the principles of the Holy Alliance, as following them lead to the dead end the policy of Nicolas I predecessor. A number of successes achieved by the emperor lead to the erroneous estimation of the situation in the beginning of the 1850-ies and to Franco-British contradictions re-evaluation. As the result Russia found itself in political isolation during the Crimean war.