With as late of a POD as possible (earliest accepted: 1600), make Russia split up into at least three separate nations that all claim the title of the "One True Russia", as per USSR vs. White Russia.
Peter III escapes his assassination and the nation collapses into a civil war?
Well you can divide russia into it's three main linguistic groups... Great russian (eastern russia), little russian (european russia plus ukraine) and White russian (All of russians baltic provinces)
They would all be similiar in language and culture
Uh. wut.Well you can divide russia into it's three main linguistic groups... Great russian (eastern russia), little russian (european russia plus ukraine) and White russian (All of russians baltic provinces)
Uh. wut.
How'd you get that idea? As Helios Ra just said, Great Russia is Russia minus the east, Little Russia is Ukraine, and White Russia is Belarus, or the Whites during the Revolution. The East is just the East, or Siberia.
The Time of Troubles goes on for far longer, and Poland manages to subjugate Muscovy to its rule.
Sounds rather ASB to me.Easy: 1991. The ultra-Communist coup takes over some region; Yeltsin seizes Moscow with a popular uprising; Gorbachev holds power around his vacation home in the south.
Novgorod surviving as some vassal/buffer state of Sweden or Prussia?
Heck, perhaps Novgorod ends up in a personal union with Sweden and the Swedish king claims to be Czar of Russia, like the English kings claimed to be the kings of France.
Of course, the Novgordian (Novgorese?) rulers never claimed to rule all of Russia...
Sounds rather ASB to me.