Split from one.. well, a few even threads on the history of the region, like that one with a settled state on the Volga...
The hagiography said the eastern slavs had their first big states, i think, after a conquest and rule - 'yoke' of swedish norse warriors, the Rus. Or something.
What if there was no eastern slavs, or not much... what if the older inhabitant around, the 'volga finns' and all, where never conquered, assimilated or so into the future russia(s), before (I think) any norses come in mass....
Was those nations, those civilisations, close to settling down, if nomadic? could they have made a sedentary civilisation, towns?
Would the swedishes (or others) foreigners be attracted to them?
Could we have had a finno-ugrian 'Russia'(s) centuries later? What would have happened later to Finns-Karelians, letonians(?)? and ironicaly, could they have assimilated slavs (and turkish and such) groups?