Why is Russia considered seperate from Europe?

[kray]

Basic question, why do people refer to Russia as if it's separate from Europe? Wasn't Russia one of the leading Imperial European powers before the Marxist revolution? Tsarist Russia was as European as the British or French empires. Was it the communist revolution that changed everything? After reading Russian history, I feel that Russia is more European than Spain, Italy, and Greece. Russia is a very white society, more white than all the countries I just named. Why isn't it considered just another European country? It's history is same as literally every European country out there. 

[Carl-Richard]

Russia is Russia. It links most of the world's continents together.

[Rilles]

Russia is both Europe and Asia, separated by the Ural Mountains. 

[Tim R]

Russia west of the Ural Mountains is Europe, everything to the east is considered Asian. Russia is simply too big a country to be classified as either Europe or Asia. "Europe" is a geographical class, it has nothing to do with history or ethnicity (which btw differs a lot in Russia, go to the east and see how people will look more and more Asian).

[Vrubel]

In a political context, Russia is often not considered Europe. Because people associate Europe with liberal democracies and Russia is often opposed/contrasted to them. Even Russians say for example:  "look what Europe is doing" or "Europeans get us wrong" etc. Of course by Europe, they mainly mean the powers and liberal democracies of western Europe. 

Also, historically Russia always tried to catch up to "Europe" in its development. Russia's progress was stunned by the bad fortune of being under Mongol occupation, which was a profound Asian tribal steppe influence that western Europe never experienced. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Vrubel

[Rilles]

38 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

In a political context, Russia is often not considered Europe. Because people associate Europe with liberal democracies and Russia is often opposed/contrasted to them. Even Russians say for example:  "look what Europe is doing" or "Europeans get us wrong" etc. Of course by Europe, they mainly mean the powers and liberal democracies of western Europe. 

Also, historically Russia always tried to catch up to "Europe" in its development. Russia's progress was stunned by the bad fortune of being under Mongol occupation, which was a profound Asian tribal steppe influence that western Europe never experienced. 

A big part of this is that Europe was basically divided in two from 1945-1991 with the Eastern Bloc. Its going to take time to catch up, systems have alot of corruption left in them even after they fall, they dont change magically. 

[Chives99]

only a small part of Russia is actually in Europe

[Shin]

Russia is closer to China than Europe politically wise, and geographically it's not in Europe either.

Putin will most likely never surrender his seat at this point, unless he gets murdered.

[tsuki]

@kray I may be biased because I am Polish and we have a history with Russians.

I think that thinking of Russia as a country, in the same sense as any other European country is unhelpful. Russia is fucking HUUUUUGE. This is not a technical, or geographical remark, more of a cultural one. This is an empire that spans across practically the whole Asia, and some of Europe. I would be very surprised if they were in any way as culturally homogeneous as countries of Europe to be considered similar. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by tsuki

[snowyowl]

I too think of both Russia and China as empires rather than countries, and that we aren't so well educated about the ethnic diversity they both have. The stage blue desire to keep them as unified "countries" leads to insecurity about breaking apart, and therefore high levels of support for strong demagogue leaders. 

It leads me to wonder, to all those forum members who dream about a unified world govt, how's it going to happen in a liberal democratic way without ending up with a dystopia like a bigger version of Russia/China? The EU is one model, though it only has a limited amount of centralisation and already shows similar tensions between the centre and the regions, as we can see in the USA.