The OP was trying to generalize and make conclusions about culture, politics and economy based on geography -- coast vs interior -- of regions of a larger whole. But the USSR was not a nation or a homogenous union and Estonia (for instance) having been invaded, illegally annexed and made part of the USSR at one point does not in any way make it comparable to Russia.

The point: there are a lot of very fundamental differences between these countries that are arguably more important and that would more easily account for differences in politics and economics other than geography.

(Besides, Russia has coastline, too...)

I want people to know when they rely on things that are wrong to prove a point, because that probably renders the point at least partially invalid. You can dismiss that as "signalling political correctness" but it is nevertheless the truth, and on a US-centric forum like this I think many are not aware of the situation.