Red coated Santa was apparently used first in marketing in America. Before that, Santa wore all types of coats, green for instance:
While the Russian Empire was marked in red in some maps from the Romanov times, the Green Color was considered the one in which the Empire ought to be marked in.
Marking Russia in red is inspired by the Soviet flag. Make Russia Green Again. Also build a Pleistocene habitat in Siberia with woolly mammoth. Make Mammoths Shit in Siberia Again.
Insomniac Resurrected 
Russian soldiers wore predominantly green uniforms from the 1600s up until 1900ish, as well, and that was a defining Russian thing much like “redcoats” were (and still are in ceremonial circumstances) British.
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Thank you, I noticed that in paintings. But I know more about art than military uniforms, so I didn’t think about it.
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It is kind of sad that 70 years of a country’s 1000 year history dominates the public perception of said country so much, though it is understandable given the 20th century rise of global mass media and entertainment and from where most of the “soft power” therein comes from.
Just the other day, Financial Times referred to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow as being “most known” for the Pussy Riot “performance”. Sad as it is, I am sure it’s actually true, thanks to the aforementioned dynamic (slant, propaganda, lies by omission, that sort of thing that permeates more of less every written word on Russia abroad).
Skewed perspectives…
People just don’t know it was built to celebrate gratitude for the victory over the French invaders, signifying the Grace of God over Russia. That it was the largest Orthodox cathedral in the world when it was first built, that it was plundered, vandalized and eventually demolished by the communists back in the 1930s (one could thus liken Pussy Riot with the “reds”, apropos) and finally rebuilt with the help of unprecedented grassroot donations when communism died. Stuff like that.
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The Pussy Riot represent the Bolsheviks of today, a degenerate descendant of an equally f*fled regime. Western reporting on Russia is abysmal.
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