[smsm42]

The culture comment was an answer to the critique that you can not talk about culture in Russia because there are many cultures. There are, but one of them is dominant. They do not promote multiculturalism, at least not what is meant by that in the West. On the contrary, the staple of their official ideology is preserving Russia's uniqueness at all costs - even at the cost of rejecting humanist values that are considered "Western". Other cultures are allowed if they are subservient to the imperial culture - same story in every empire, really, take a book about any imperial culture, Russia's one would have similar traits, it's not unique in that regard. The main source of conflict now is that imperial culture needs much more of an empire than Russia currently is, thus obsession with territorial conquest, despite already having huge undeveloped and neglected territories.