James C. Pearce, Jeremy Morris and Jonny Tickle discuss what “multicultural” actually means in Russia, testing the idea of the country as a multicultural miracle. They look at Slavic Orthodox symbols, Soviet nostalgia and regional folk branding alongside local identities in places like Dagestan, Tatarstan and Yakutia that do not simply see themselves as branches of a single Russian civilisation. The trio distinguish between state-curated diversity and real cultural autonomy, and between the official culture of Victory Day aesthetics, folk dancers and new “peoples of Russia” holidays and the culture people actually live through K-pop, anime, YouTube, rap, Turkish and Korean serials. Along the way they explore pride and inferiority, Europe versus “Asia,” and ask whether the true unifying force in today’s Russia is not tradition at all but the internet.

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