[You’ve just described the Mongol empire, the paradigm which Moscow copied to overcome all the other cities in the forest zone of what had been Kievan Rus. In 600 years it hasn’t changed all that much.
Look into this “Eurasianism” cult that is influencing Putin now.]
To the extent Russia’s government is similar to another, it’s the Chinese government, which managed to disinherit hereditary nobles with their own private armies centuries prior. Even without aristocratic rivals, however, power abhors a vacuum and weakness or inattention on the part of the ruler invites challengers.
Chinese history, for instance, is replete with Horatio Alger stories written in blood. The founder of the Han dynasty is said to have been an illiterate peasant whose exploits preceded Spartacus’s by over a century, at a time when hereditary nobles were a perennial threat to the throne. The Ming founder was an itinerant panhandler. Many also-rans of obscure origin came within a hair’s breadth of attaining supreme power, including a man who dubbed himself God’s other Christian son.
If there’s a common thread, it’s bow and scrape until you get the brass ring, then lower the boom on both potential challengers and those who got in your way on the way up. The goal of state propaganda is to inspire obedient minions. In reality, the threat of violent death led both ordinary people and ranking officials to submit to enemies of the throne when all seemed lost.