In 1853, the famous English scientist and geologist, Sir Roderick Impie Murchinson, who traveled all over Russia, speaking at a crowded rally in London's Hyde Park against Britain's entry into the Crimean War, said:
“Even if Russia expands its possessions at the expense of neighboring colonies, unlike other colonial powers, it gives these new acquisitions more than it takes from them. And not because it is driven by some kind of philanthropy or something like that. The initial aspirations of all empires differ little, but where a Russian person appears, everything miraculously gets a completely different direction.
The moral standards developed by the Eastern Slavs since pre-Christian times do not allow the Russian person to violate someone else's conscience and encroach on property that does not rightfully belong to him. More often, out of the ineradicable feeling of compassion rooted in him, he is ready to give up his last shirt than to take it away from someone.
Therefore, no matter how victorious the Russian weapon is, in a purely mercantile sense, Russia always remains the loser. Those defeated by her or taken under her protection, in the end, usually win by keeping their way of life and spiritual institutions intact, despite their obvious inadequacy for progress, as you can easily convince yourself by getting to know them more or less thoroughly, increasing your material wealth and moving substantially along the path of civilization.
Illustrative examples of this, at least, Estonia and the Caucasus, for centuries despised and raped by their neighbors, but took an honorable place among the peoples and achieved an incomparable prosperity under the patronage of Russia, while from the acquisition of Estonia and the Caucasus, the position of the Russian people, that is the indigenous population of the metropolis did not improve at all.
The latter seems to us a paradox, but such is the reality, the root causes of which undoubtedly lie in the peculiarities of Russian morality."
