I might be biased, but in mid 2000s there was a huge resurgence of folk rock and folk metal in Russian scene, and it produced the most earnest records. But everyone's different

I have yet to listen to Arkona :D

Arkona is one of them, yes, I still need to give Grima a proper listen too

And obviously a lot of people are very fond of Arkona, but I'm not sure they're still Russia-based.

Grima are pretty good

@Karlabos, thanks for schooling me

Only know a handful Russian metal bands that aren't shit... "Putin's Meat Processing Plant #1" was one of them back in the day. Grindcore/punk. Most of everything else deserves 1