I'm not dead xD !
I have everything to make a russian expansion mod, just lacking time and motivation, but maybe i can provide russian stuff as some kind of DLC, simply adding troops and equipement that the player can then buy/recruit and forge his own russian empire ! Of course it's far from being realistic and it keeps the vanilla map ... Still, it's better than letting my russian uniforms and flags rot in my HDD ...
Companions would then become russian lords, everything is possible, i just need to change their gender, and work on their stories a little to avoid game breaking comments, but it's not really important. at least they could become lords and hold lands.
Just an idea though.