Is Russia part of the West in terms of culture/religion?
I don’t know do you realize yourself but you put a question that has been hotly debated both in Russia itself and outside for a few centuries already. Are we Europeans or Asians or probably something else? To what extent are we different from Europe or Asia? What is our place among cultural trends of the humankind after all? From my humble point of view whatever differences Russia and Europe have the Russians anyway represent a specific branch of the European Christian civilization. It was the case from the very start of the Russian history long before Peter the Great you mentioned (18th century). The Russian (as well as Ukrainian and Belorussian) proto-statehood developed in close connection with Byzantine, the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, which from the 9th century AD and till its collapse in 15th century served as a model state for the peoples we know now as Ukrainians, Russians and Belorussians. Even the very creation of the ancient Russian statehood (like it was the case with
