This is a true masterclass in historical gaslighting
Oh, ruzzia preserved cultures all right...
Only by aggressively trying to pave national cultures with a monolithic ruzzian identity.
Language Replacement: They loved native languages so much they outright banned them. Under the Russian Empire, decrees like the Valuev Circular (1863) and the Ems Ukaz (1876) literally banned the publication of books, religious texts, and even sheet music in the Ukrainian language. During the Soviet era, ruzzian was strictly enforced as the language of success, administration, and "brotherhood." If you wanted a career, you abandoned your mother tongue.
The Surname Makeover: To help non-ruzzians feel more "included" in the empire, authorities frequently altered indigenous surnames. Across Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Siberia, traditional names were forcefully modified to include Russian suffixes like -ov, -ev, and -in. It was administrative erasure disguised as clerical standardization.
"Nurturing" the Cultural Elites
You claimed the empire developed these nations. Indeed, they developed a highly efficient system for murdering anyone who remembered they were a distinct nation.
The Executed Renaissance: In the 1930s, Stalin's regime systematically arrested, deported, and executed a whole generation of Ukrainian writers, artists, and intellectuals because their vibrant cultural revival threatened moscow's control.
Katyn and Beyond: When the Soviets invaded Poland in 1939, they didn't develop the Polish intelligentsia; they took over 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals into the forest of Katyn and shot them in the back of the head. Similar purges decimated the intellectual elites of the Baltic states, Belarus, and the Tatar populations. If you were a local leader, a poet, or a thinker who didn't enthusiastically bow to moscow, you were given a one-way ticket to a Gulag or a mass grave.
They Are "Still Doing It"
And that this isn't just history, it is current geopolitical policy.
In the occupied territories of Ukraine today, the ruzzian state is systematically burning Ukrainian history books, forcing schools to switch entirely to the ruzzian curriculum, and dismantling monuments of local cultural figures.
They are actively deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to ruzziia to be "re-educated" and given ruzzian passports—a textbook tactic of cultural genocide meant to sever the next generation from their heritage.
You are pointing fingers at the horrific histories of the British and Americans. But empire is empire. Ussr/ruzzian empire was a totalitarian meat grinder. It used the excuse of "economic equality" to justify mass murder, systemic oppression, and the complete suppression of human rights. So yes, they definitely "developed" those colonies—straight into the ground.
