How come poker is so big in Russia these days and why are 99.5% of them at such a bad standard compared to the rest of the poker world?

less educational resources available in Russian I would think.

i meet a lot of russian tags and nitzz

Не знаю как в турнирах , но в кэш игре Русские очень достойно смотрятся.

I wouldn't say that a lot of em are bad.. There are a lot of Russians though. And there are also a lot of high stakes Russian guys. Isn't TrueTeller on stars a Russian? Also: big part of top tens of Sunday Millions is Russian. Verneer is a russian American I believe. He makes not only english vid's but also Russian vids..

But I see more often eastern European people being solid for some reason..

Russia is a big country.

because there's a lot of Russians? Russia is huge! And i don't think they're any worse than anyone else. its like everything, there's good and there's bad.

well first i would like to state that poker has alway been popular in russia just like anywhere else sinse mid to end of 80's. When USSR felt apart a lot of bussiness men saw it as an opprtunity for good profit and they started opening up casinos and card rooms. 90s were tough times for working class but good time for those few people who had some kind of financial security or background, business and crime, and specialy good time for those who were working in government. 90s was the time where the line between bussiness and crime just whiped away because if you had money you could do anything, even get killed. There was a lot games going on at the time. Any games, i mean , starting from 1 hand bandit to stud poker. Casinos even had their own type of poker called russian poker. Basicly same rulles as 5 card draw only youre playing against a dealer. But most of the games were not cheap so most of the working class could not afford it. By the end of 90s and begining of 2000's Casino industry has grown so much that even in small cities of population of 100 000 had casinos minimum 2-5 on Sq KM. A lot of poor people looked at casino as an opportunity to make some money to get by, only to get addicted and loose everything.Since casinos did not provide a l0t of "fair" games like poker. Mostly it was roulet or video poker Blackjack and etc. Its kind of obvious "if you want to win in a casino buy yourself a casino". Since Most of the profit casinos made was from house games as i listed before, most of the places didnot have poker in their menu, but some did, and people played. In 2007 or 2008 i dont remember, Government decided since most of the casinos were not regulated properly, there were no strict definite regulative laws, and government wasnt getting enough money from it since no tax laws either on gambling they decided to make gambling illigal in most of the country except 3-4 places that they made as a games zones. Hoping that it will bring great investments and make new places shine like LAS Vegas and Atlantic City. At that time Poker movement took another direction right before the law came in to an effect, there was made an organization Russian Federation of Sport Poker or something like that which made poker as an intelectual sport and not a gambling. So when all the casinos started to close there were formed a lot of pokerschools and clubs so the poker players still could get their game on. To make the long story short, those idiots that were forced to close down their shops of easy profit, opened up their own poker schools and clubs but instead of teaching and playing poker they put their black jack tables and rulets and video poker and started working it like its normal. After few busts government officiaills decided to put poker out of sport federation and level it as gambling. Since poker became illegal a lot of people started playing online and that is why there is more russians are playing now then ever. As of those 3-4 game zones, that were supposed to be like Vegas are a bunch of fields with no roads and no electricity because the amout of investment is needed to make it look good is enormous but the stabilty and security for tommorow is puny, and most investors are not dumb. Nobody wants to Invest in a empty field that is so far from civilization and big populated cities.
P.s. Forgive me for my bad english