History of Nova Ruthenia

...However, the Russian president reversed his course after it was obvious that continuing the current foreign policy will only harm the economy further. His administration signed peace deals with Trujkrajina and Amelovia, restored imports of foreign goods and signed measures to invite investors from abroad. While these measures have been somewhat successful, they were perceived as "weak" by the voter base, which drove presidential approval ratings to lows unseen in several years.

The people who felt betrayed by the president's sudden reversal of policy rallied behind his opponent from the nationalist "Third Rome Movement", Daniil Tsaryov. Being one of the major leaders of pro-Russian separatist forces abroad, Tsaryov was hailed as a hero by the people.

Tsaryov's nationalist movement wanted to "restore Russia to its former glory", demanding a strong adherence to Orthodox Christianity, aggressive defense of Russian interests abroad and a block on foreign imports in order to protect the economy — basically, an escalated version of the president's previous policies.

Tsaryov's party started arranging mass protests and riots in major cities all around Russia. At first, the police cracked down on the protesters, but soon enough they were met with resistance from other far-right movements. Eventually, the underfunded and ineffectual police force was unable to contain the protesters, and several regions' went under the Third Rome Movement's control. The movement promptly renamed itself "New Ruthenia" (Novaya Ruteniya), based on the Latin term for the ancient Kievan Rus'.

The President and his administration, afraid for their lives, fled the country. The majority of federal deputies resigned. The remaining members of the Duma decided to hold an early election with all the previously banned parties given their place on the ballots, hoping this will stop the riots.

This was the first — and, eventually, the last — democratic election in recent history. Candidates from all over the political spectrum were able to take a shot at becoming the next President.

The election, however, quickly became a race between two candidates: Alexey Borisov from the United Progressive Party and Mikhail Zubrov from the nationalist Slavic Unity Party. Borisov was able to keep up with Zubrov at first, but fell behind when Daniil Tsaryov himself expressed support for Zubrov's party. At the end, Zubrov won the election with a 27 percentage point landslide.

One of President Zubrov's first actions was to rename the nation's capital into Tsaryovo, after the New Ruthenia movement's leader. Zubrov's presidential program largely corresponded to the nationalists' demands: a heavy emphasis on spirituality, limits on immigration and imports and an urgent restoration of Russia's law enforcement and the miitary.

However, not all of Russian territories agreed to follow his course. Regions in Siberia and the Far East (where ethnic Russians account for a minority of the population) have set up their own separatist movements. The Russian military, no longer capable of attacking anything, couldn't prevent the regions from seceding. Some of them turned into relatively free states, some became fundamentalist nations. They also got access to their territories' nuclear arms, which made Zubrov's plans to eventually regain these regions practically impossible.

A new constitution was written. Modeled after the Constitution of the Russian Federation, it, however, differed in many aspects, among which: a state religion was established, the remaining territory was divided into smaller districts (which got a slightly greater degree of autonomy) and, the most important, the country itself was renamed "Nova Ruthenia" to honor the New Ruthenia movement.

In order to set up an effective law enforcement system, protesters from nationalist movements were amnestied from any previous crimes and hired into local police forces. While this resulted in a powerful law enforcement system, this system was also brutal and ineffective in finding actual criminals. Independent reports claim that people from poor regions of the nation are forced to confess to crimes they may have not committed under torture.

Severe punishments were invoked to a degree unseen since Stalin's periods, as people were charged with treason and terrorism for stealing $20 worth of food or graffitiing insults towards the president. The overflowing courts had to set up time limits in order to keep up with the rate of arrests. Prison population skyrocketed, and the resulting cheap labor force was used to rebuild the nation's agriculture and infrastructure, to varying degrees of success.

A large part of Nova Ruthenian industry was forcefully nationalized. The right of requisition (also known as eminent domain) was (and is) used in order to obtain any particularly profitable or useful companies, often with little to no compensation.

Many of these changes, however, have been relaxed since. For example, criticism of the current government is tolerated to a certain degree, and foreign technology can be imported, provided it's certified by the state consumer and/or intelligence agencies.