Do you consider Russia as western or eastern culture?

But other people can still classify them at least in relative terms. I think classifying them according to region is not appropriate as most of the Russia in very sparsely populated. So even if majority of land area of Russia falls within Asia, the majority of its population lies in Europe. We can classify them in terms of culture and spirituality. They have maintained their orthodox form of Christianity and never really embraced European Catholicism to the best of my knowledge. If you had asked Europeans 100 years ago whether they included Russia as western or European country then they would have frowned upon you. Things have of course changed now to a great extent.

While it is true that Peter the Great westernised Russia in the early 18th century, the westernisation was more in their dressing sense and industrialisation than in traditions, art and customs. In the 19th century there were primarily two groups of intellectuals in Russia. One was Westernizers and other was Slavophiles. The first group asserted European style identity while the latter group were rigorously opposed to the idea of seeing Russia as a western culture.

 I have seen quite a few Russian movies and it seems to me that regions like Moscow may be much more westernised than easternised but the interiors of Russia are much more eastern like. If you see movies such as The Twelve Chairs (1971) or Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967) then you will find that their culture looks vastly different from European culture.