Recently there has been lot of seething from rusanons who babble about returning to Russian Empire. Here is short info what Russian Empire was and what it was not.
-Capitol city of Russian Empire was located at ehtnic Finnish province (Ingria), not at ethnic Russia.
-Capitol city was located in middle of an culturally Protestant North European province. Not at culturally "turkish" Orthodox slav land.
-Capitol city population was very mixed. Germans, Dutch, Finns from Finland, Swedes even French. Basic city dweller was of mixed European ancestry.
-Tsars who ruled the Empire from this city were mainly Germans.
-All elite was from this city, built from scratch on Finnish swamp. Empire was entirely centered around St. Petersburg.
-Relationship of Capitol and Russia was not that of London's relationship with England but that of London's relationship with India.
-Ethnic Russians were living elsewhere, in Ethnic Russia.
-Ethnic Russians were illiterate slaves, serfs. (Picrel)
-Serfdom ended in 1861, one year AFTER the slaves were freed in USA
-Ethnic Russians (agitated by Jews) murdered the population of Ingria and former Imperial people of St. Petersburg.
-Modern St. Petersburg is much like Königsberg or Viipuri. City with post-ww2 alien population.
This is the truth about Russian Empire, which really was St. Petersburg Empire. The Empire Russian people yearn to go back.