Once you step outside of the Western Europe alignment the line between Exploration and Modern gets real blurry.
And that's the problem with Russia.
It has strong cultural and religious antecedents with Byzantium, but Byzantium is most likely (if it is in) an Exploration Age civ. So backdate it to Rome (Caesar = Tsar? Close enough for Civ!) then they have a choice:
Imperial Russia = 1400 - 1800 more or less, becomes an Exploration Age Civ with St Basil's Cathedral (and maybe, finally, Ivan III or Ivan IV instead of Pete or Kathy for leader) OR
Kievan Rus becomes an Exploration Age Civ, also with St Basil's Cathedral with a little shuffling and stretching.
Modern Russia is where the problem really lies. Assuming Modern Age starts around 1800 with Industrialization and all the Social/Political problems associated, then the 225 or so years since have been 118 years of Imperial Russia, 71 years of the Soviet Union, and about 33 years of the current Russian State. That last has the problem that all of its leaders are too recent and the other problem is that neither the Soviet Union nor the post-Soviet Russian State leave a good feeling behind when contemplating them.
On the other hand, Imperial Russia post 1800 doesn't provide a lot of historically-accurate decent Leaders either. They could use some distinctly Off The Wall leaders, though: Rasputin springs to mind, or Bakunin the Anarchist. What the heck, if they can have Napoleon the Corsican Ogre as a Leader, why not the Mad Monk or a Leader who was steadfastly against any form of government? Think of the attributes either one could get . . .
)
