East is a conservative component of the Russian national identity, which is religious (Eastern Orthodox spirituality in harmonic co-habitation with all traditional religions in Russia) and which is traditional (as a model of the family) and even largely patriarchal as a behaviour.
The East is within the Eurasian statehood of Russia (strong centralization, which is inevitable due to the huge territory) and, therefore, the political system involves educational authoritarianism combined with Eurasian democracy and oligarchic capitalism; the sacralization of the state is an important part of the Russian identity. The state should invoke pride — otherwise the Russians could themselves destroy it. The Russian history of the 19>th and the 20>th centuries has shown that noone could conquer or destroy Russia from the outside (1812,1941–1945) but Russia can destroy itself, if it wishes (1917, 1991). It should not be forgotten, however, that, while Russia has not been defeated by the West, the East has destroyed it once (Ancient Rus by the Tatar-Mongols).
Paradoxically, Europe of the time of the Enlightenment is more likely to be preserved by Russia and Belarus through the Eurasian Union than by Brussels, for the time being oriented towards open de-Chris-tianization and de-Europeanization of the Old Continent under the pressure of trans-national corporations. The latter seek not only destroying the states — the elimination of state control — but also turning the nations into atomized planctoon of elfs of a third gender. The Russian culture is European and, along with the Belarusian and Ukrainian (Malorussian), may prevent the danger of having one day only the name left out of Europe, like Atlantida.
Only a balance between the East and the West in post-Soviet Russia may prevent the consecutive autoimmune crisis due to lack of national identity though a policy of dualism (Russian-Russiyan), having combined the imperial and the national — the two faces of the Russian post-Soviet eagle, of the phoenix-empir.