Russia is a territory that was conquered by vikings, viking established ruling dynasty of Rurikids there. Volodymyr the Great in Ukraine was a viking. Russia is also the only slavic country that managed to establish an empire, which is weird, because all other Slavs got conquered. And finally, Russia until today is a two-tiered country, where you have the world of elite and world of people. Russians are so separated from each other that russian elite gave foreign names to its cities, towns and institutions. Russians called them PetersBURG, OranienBURG, SchlisselBURG, KronSTAD. It could be the case that ever since the Norman conquest of Russia, the reason for political success of Russia is due to historical distinctiveness of its elite and so Slavs there were always just passive slaves to Norman rulers.