Read a novel recently where a Russian character says 'Russians cannot live like normal people. It will always be one extreme or the other with them'. Maybe that 's true. They've gone from the autocracy of the tsar to the totalitarianism of the Soviets and now back to the despotism of Putin, in just over one century.
Plus a society where the powerful and connected get rich with no path to success for the average Ivan, a culture of theft develops. It’s been present for ages.