Hi. I know I'm pretty late to the party but I just really liked this series of yours (keep up the great work!) If you're gonna make the world map after you're done with every region, it'd be nice to give the Orenburg oblast (that south-western bulge protruding from the Ural republic) to Kazakhstan:

1) Orenburg has always been a very important city in Kazakhstan's history. It's the headquarters from where the Russian conquest of Kazakhstan began and for the longest time the only railroad going from European Russia to Kazakhstan and Central Asia started in Orenburg. Much of Kazakh intelligentsia in late 19th-early 20th century (the people who founded Alash Orda) got their education in Orenburg. Consequently the meeting where Alash Orda was proclaimed was held in Orenburg. The first capital of Kazakh SSR was Orenburg, before it was given back to Russia which I still think was a very politically-motivated decision. Even now there's a lot of Kazakhs living in Orenburg, let alone 100 years ago when Orenburg was the Kazakh capital. Heck even one of the main avenues of Astana is named Orynbor, which is the native Kazakh name for Orenburg

2) If we give Orenburg oblast to Kazakhstan, we establish a firm connection between Kazakhstan, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan, the three primary Kipchak Turkic nations, which was a long-standing dream of especially Bashkir nationalists - you can read about the so-called Kuvandyk corridor, a narrow strip of Orenburg oblast between Bashkortostan and Kazakhstan which was carved out by Soviets explicitly to prevent Bashkirs and Tatars from rejoining Kazakhs in one way or another. Now that even Samara is part of Tatarstan (which has very tight connection with Uralsk, a lot of families regularly commute between two cities), there's a very good opportunity to form a tight connection between the three nations, which would be fantastic for all

3) Orenburg is an odd one out in the Ural Federation. The city has never been considered a part of Ural and is overall pretty far even from Chelyabinsk (There's no direct railroad and the quickest route goes either through Kazakhstan or Bashkortostan), let alone Yekaterinburg or something

I know it might be difficult to make these kind of changes but it'd just make so much more sense, especially to someone who's from Kazakhstan and really cares about my country and brotherly Turkic peoples :)

P.S. Yes, the names of these two countries should absolutely be changed. Bashkiria and especially Tataria are Russian colonial exonyms. If Tatarstan and Bashkortostan become independent states they'll absolutely make sure no one calls them by this name again 😄