There is a Tagalog proverb, Kung saan may azukal, may langgam, meaning: where there's sugar, there are flies.
Anyhow, Russian women are still notorious gold diggers. You seem to ignore this part.
So, a naive foreigner who is there as an Anglo, acting as one, will attract that type the way sugar attracts flies.
I generally do not have such an experience because I speak the language and if I want to, I can court them in their way. Only a tiny percent of them ripped me off. Most just want love. But 98% cannot speak English to save their lives and if they can, their English is devoid of any feelings. The cultural gap is wide. Yeah, Russian is harder to learn but it is still Indo European and it is worth the investment.
Most guys who learn it and learn the culture and do things the local way ( when in Rome, do as Romans do), enter the mainstream and date very good girls. They very rarely have any problems.
Russian guys also, almost never complain about gold diggers. Because they know how to deal with them when they encounter them. They just go and find another girl and leave this one in the lurch. Or worse- slap her around a bit till she cries. There are plenty to go around for everybody. And a Russian girl will only ask the guy for a moderate amount of money because that is all she knows he can afford. Rich guys just keep mistresses and give them an allowance and the rules are all set.
A sucker tourist or a non Russian speaking American, though, experiences a strange new reality when there.
Plus any non Western woman whose language is not English who makes a beeline for an Anglo foreigner who does not speak her language is usually a gold digger or someone with a selfish agenda. Good and sincere, love-seeking women do not actively advertise for foreigners on marriage websites and do not get excited when one comes into town. Those are usually off limits for those who are not part of the culture and who do not try to be. That is just honest truth.
Imagine a similar situation in the USA whereby an American woman would be advertising online for non English speaking Arabs or Japanese. Or gets excited when a rich Arab ( who does not speak any English) comes to town and wants to know him. Not your average all American girl she would be, would you not agree?
Yeah, it kind of rubs off on them, but mostly, they are just very oppressed people who have been screwed over by all these big powers- Germany, Sweden, Russia, USSR, and they are in the survival mode all the time. Again, being there requires an insight into why people act the way they act and a strategy can be worked out to deal with all that. Empathy does help sometimes.It also seems like from the history lesson you gave that the Baltic women might be tainted with Ashkenazi traits I want nothing to do with.
Most Anglo guys plus other foreigners in those lands just think they will go and find an improved version of a good American ( or Swedish, Arab) girl, who will have all the fresh and sweet traits of her country while miraculously having the good American values that are still in the US. Where would she get those, I wonder.
Many will not even crack a book on the history of those lands and/or get ready to face the negative stuff that is there.
My message- if you go to those lands, go well prepared. Then, you will succeed. But a Captain America save-a-poor-girl-from-her-shit hole-of-a country-and-take -her-home-to-mom succeeds only a certain percentage of times.