While I myself am not Russian, I am from the US and actually currently living in Russia for university study and it's quite striking to me how popular FA seems to be in Russia. I don't live in a tiny provincial city (mine is actually the fourth-largest city in Russia) but at around 1,4 million people it's really not very populous. Even my regional city has a small but surprisingly active community that for all intents and purposes seems to be totally accepted by the local public (kids in particular seem to love interacting with people in their fursuits). There are plenty of Russians who only have their language so while a good many do know English, there are others that do not.

As to why FA itself is popular, I can only assume is that it's because it's really the only game in town. Sure there's various chat services and social media too but a dedicated site for furries where people who want to buy or sell commissions of furry art is pretty hard to find. For as much as people try to make alternatives to FA, so far, none of them seem to have stuck.

There's a very large chunk of 'em, yep.

A lot of them also seem to be extremely good at art. Not only that but they offer it extremely cheaply.

Miles-DF is Russian and well..
"Cheap" isn't the word that comes to mind when I see YCH's like these: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/26013280/

But for the most part as a majority I see Russians undercharging more than anyone else

Could be the exchange rates. By and large FA's userbase is from the English speaking world, which means US, Canada, Australia, and western Europe. All of those places have strong currencies compared to the ruble, especially after 2014. On top of that the cost of living is much lower in Russia than most of the English speaking world. A dollar or a euro goes way farther over there. Not saying that's carte blanche to ask lower prices from Russians, but if they're setting their own prices could be the reason.

Can any Russians reading this chime in on this?

That's just supply and demand in action. He's got almost 50 000 watchers, so he can pretty much set any price because so many people would want art from him.

I know, just found it funny that he called russians the cheapest when i think Miles-DF might be the most expensive artist on the site, and if he isn't then he's certainly on the list of the most expensive.

Woah. I had no idea people could charge that much. at first I thought it was a joke.

Yeah, there are lots of very skilled Russian furry artists. I'm also wondering if it has to do with population size, as Russia is a huge country. But then again, when I'm on websites like deviantart, 90% of people I see are from the United States.

This, I've gotten some really incredible art from that part of the world. One of the pics I'm waiting for now is from Ukraine so there are other ex-soviet state furs around too.

I'm at least partly ethnically Russian (somewhere around ~1/4) But I'm born and raised in Canada. If memory serves, you're in Oceania, yeah? Makes sense you share timezone with the Russian user-base. (At least in part)

Yeah, Australia and NZ are indeed Oceania, and as such timezone wise are not that far removed from Russia :3

Yep, that make sense to me. Usually when I'm on, the front page flows a bit slower and I see a lot of people that I recognise, a lot of them being from Russia.

There is a chunk of the far east of Siberia that is due north of New Zealand (and a bit of Alaska too) but that part of Russia is pretty empty.

Even central and western Russia aren't too far off from the Oceanic time-zones though. Certainly not a bad as the offset between NA and AU/NZ.

I have noticed that too.

There seem to be a lot of artists from Poland as well.

Im supposing the best place to market furry art in the world is Furaffinity without many other options, whereas for normal safe-for-work art there are a lot more options for people who don't speak english. I don't see as many people from highly populated places like china though, so im curious about if there is a specific event that guided a lot of Russians (or other european areas nearby) to this website in particular, or if Russians have a culture where somehow furries have become extremely popular.