The Ukrainian revolution shook the post Soviet territories, with it's ethnocentric, nationalistic, and anti Soviet sentiment. Although it was obviously a turning point in the history of Ukraine, at that time nobody thought that it would inspire similar movements in Russia, which would transform that country. The invasion of the Russian Federation into the Ukraine eventually degraded into a multi faction civil war in both of these countries, which eventually spilled over to the whole post Soviet territories, as competing warlords and parties fought one another for power. The movement that eventually won out emerged was the most bizarre of all.
Born of the existing Russian neopagan movement, and inspired by the ethnocentric, nationalistic, and anti Soviet former state of Ukraine, this ideology is called True Russianism. They are xenophobic not so much against foreigners, or non Slavic minorities of Russia, but against Russians who are not Russianized enough. Their definition of the "True Russian Culture" is pre-Peter the Great culture, the Kievan and Novgorodian Rus. They go about cleansing Russia of Soviet Union heritage and "foreign influences". They are anti cosmopolitan, anti Communist, anti Capitalist, anti atheist, and basically anti everything which was not invented in the medieval Russia.
The cultural police (who wear chain mail and carry real swords instead of rubber batons) enforces these policies, makes everyone wear embroidered robes and flower wreaths, and bans jeans, T shirts, baseball hats, and the like. The medieval Russian language is enforced as the only valid language in schools, and the "Soviet language" is banned. Verbal language tests keep the population in line, where a person may be randomly asked on the street to pronounce an ancient Russian word. The "Soviet" holidays are banned, and True Russian holidays are enforced. Like in OTL Iran, there is a strict dress code, for both women and men, to wear medieval looking Russian clothing. Many insufficiently Russianized buildings were demolished, including almost all of the Soviet apartment blocks. In their place were erected "True Russian" buildings, Tolkien-esque fairy tale architecture, made of wood or concrete imitations of wood, ornate to absurdity.
It's a weird kind of country, a mixture of North Korean hermit kingdom authoritarianism, and Amish self sufficient rural traditionalism, with an ancient Russian fairy tale aesthetic. All computers, televisions, and cars are banned, however refrigerators, tractors, sewing machines, diesel saws, and other tools which make life easier are allowed. There has been an effort to move people out of the cities into the country, and them demolishing the empty city buildings. "Urban culture" and "cosmopolitan culture" has been banned. Most of the population is now rural, living on self sufficient homesteads, as farmers. The people are allowed to own the land, and all mention of the collective farms of the Soviet period has been erased from the history books. Private property is informal, on a first come, first serve basis. People are allowed to go into the wilderness and build houses on their own, deep within the woods, without any governmental regulations.
Other than checking that the only crops grown are non-GMO ones, and combating illegal growing of drug plants, the government doesn't put it's nose into these family farms, and the people are free to grow any fruits and vegetables that they wish. Hunting, gathering, fishing, and foraging is mostly unregulated. Rural and agrarian lifestyles are encouraged by the government. Taxes are reasonable, and economic freedom is allowed, however the only currency that is used are bronze coins, and barter is the default exchange of goods and services in rural areas.
The government is content to keep their people at around a 19th century level of technology. For the people there are cottage industries, which are located in villages, and all clothes, kitchenware, farm tools, etc are produced by craftsmen. More complicated tools, such as the aforementioned diesel saws, tractors, and refrigerators (which are all typically knock offs of East Asian models) are produced by cooperative industries owned by village councils, and many of these small and medium scale industries are propped up by the government. The only heavy industries allowed are government controlled ones, which produce more advanced machinery, such as trains, parts of power plants and other critical infrastructure, solar panels, cargo airships, some approved modern medicines such as aspirin, and an insane amount of military hardware (which is for the most part up to date on modern standards, surprisingly enough) such as bombs, tanks, planes, helicopters, and nuclear weapons, in order to keep the rest of the world from taking over the country, something that the government is extremely paranoid about. Modern technology is limited to only where it is absolutely necessary, in government, military, or critical infrastructure facilities.
The government is also committed to staving off global warming. As mentioned above, all cars are banned. The dirt bike, and horse with buggy have replaced cars for short of medium distances. Wood trains, a modification of steam trains to burn wood chips instead of coal, are used to transport people and goods for long distances. Cargo blimps and helicopters are used by the government to provide transport to remote villages, several times per year. These flying machines are of course powered by Russian oil, from government owned refineries. All plastics are banned. Coal is used freely as a fuel source for government owned factories. Most of the electricity is produced by dams, solar panels, wind turbines, some coal plants, and the few extant nuclear power planets still in operation. All of this is still not enough, so most of the electricity only goes towards essential infrastructure, government owned factories, medical centers, the greatly reduced in size urban areas, and some other essential areas. Most of the villages aren't connected to the grid at all, and either make their electricity sporadically by use of solar panels, wind turbines, and portable diesel generators, or live without electricity at all, relying on wood stoves for heating.
The country of True Russia is closed off to the outside world as a giant hermit kingdom, it's economy being completely autarkic. The government is concerned about people escaping the country, and also about foreign ideas coming into the country, spoiling the "cultural purity" of this new civilization that they have created. This policy has become even more stricter with the rise of technologies such as transhumanism, augmentation, and genetic modification in the rest of the world, and the government is paranoid of the "cyborgs" and "GMO people" overrunning their civilization.
Civil liberties are a mixed bag. Computers and any modern technologies are banned, as is modern clothing, all plastics, junk food, and any leftovers of Soviet, Capitalist, or cosmopolitan culture. The government is very much North Korean like, and there is no semblance of a parliament. Villages are for the most part self governed though, however they have to attend government mandated "ancient Russian holidays". Arranged marriages (by parents) and large families are the norm, anything else is forbidden. A standardized form of the medieval Russian language is enforced, as are medieval Russian dress codes. Outwardly non traditional architecture is banned. Non Russian minorities have more freedom in cultural aspects, as long as they look "medieval enough" to government inspectors. Russians are subject to more thorough cultural and ideological tests. They are extremely superficial however, and LARPers and cosplayers have been able to outwit inspectors.
Compared to the rural areas, the cities have more modern amneties such as electricity and indoor plumbing, but life there is more regimented and subject to these cultural regulations, and curfews after sunset. People in rural areas generally are able to fly under the radar, especially if they go live in the forest as a hermit. Entertainment, except for government approved traditional cultural ceremonies, is banned as a "cosmopolitan" thing, as are restaurants, bars, and cafes, so that people would eat home cooked food only. Street food is allowed however, as are farmer's markets. Cities have population quotas in efforts to make most of the people live in rural areas. Cell phones are banned, and instead walkie talkies and 1950s phones are used. Productivity is a virtue, and anyone who is visibly slacking off, wandering around, squatting around, or littering may be whipped by the police on the spot.
While the government basically forces people to have a rural lifestyle, they don't interfere with farming, hunting, fishing, or other small scale economic activities. Although the urban areas are authoritarian and regimented, much of the forests outside of critical infrastructure or military facilities are completely ungoverned. In fact, the rural regions of this country are some of the most free areas of the world in this timeline. By the late 21st century, in this timeline, most of the other countries in the world have devolved into dystopian technocratic surveillance states, fear of which keeps the paranoid neo medieval True Russia state unified. An exodus of Amish people, Native Americans, traditional Europeans, and others have been accepted into Russia, as long as thorough medical inspections reveal that they are in fact humans, and not "cyborgs" or "terminators", as are most citizens in all other countries except the "Hermit Empire".
