The earlier you go, the harder it is to achieve. Start in the 1400s and Russia isn't even fully united yet. Start in the 1200s and what would become the nucleus of Russia is is just a periphery of the Kievan Rus. And so on and so forth.
I personally believe that Russia arose more or less at the earliest point in time it could. The Empire itself was only founded in 1701, yes, but what would become that Empire had started to take shape in the early 1500s. The early 1500s was roughly the point in time when the collective Russian population began to numerically overpower their primary adversary at the time, Lithuania (later Poland-Lithuania), and by then, it was only a matter of time before the Russians establish themselves as a giant (barring some extremely poor luck in the 1600s, of course). A few lucky strokes - weaker Lithuanian expansion, softer Mongol yoke, maybe an Orthodox Lithuania - could bump that time of ascension a few decades earlier, but for the most part, economic and population factors are not easy to sway.