In the Land of Bears and Sakura

This timeline is an abridged translation of one of the most featured Russian AH wiki's timelines. Actually I started this TL back in 2014 as a thought experiment, but more than 3 years after it became a very detailed TL and one day I could even write a book about this. This TL spreads from 1994 to 2070s and has 74 articles total both on Russian AH and Future wikis. I hope that English-speaking crowd will enjoy it as much as russian did. (I'm sorry for my English, I'm trying to do my best) Also, I'm always open for advices and suggestions from the real Japanese and those who understands Japanese politics and culture.

PoD
February 1994. Russo-Japanese negotiations over Southern Kuril Islands are doing much better progress than in OTL. Russia decides to hold a nation-wide referendum over the islands' status later that year. But during a referendum discussion in State Duma, ultra-nationalistic MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky suggests to add a third answer in ballot, which was "I'm for transferring Russian Federation to the sovereignty of Japan", just to show that this all referendum thing was a joke and Kurils are Russian forever. But this idea gone terribly wrong, as on referendum day, April 17th 1994, the third answer got 97% of votes. Russian people were tired of corrupted and ineffective Yeltsin's administration which turned Russia in poverty and weakned it's positions in world politics, so this answer was more of a protest from desperate and starving population. They prefered absorption of Russia into prosperous Japan even more than staying independent but terribly poor humiliated nation. But nonetheless the people of Russia said their word and the fate of Russia was in the hands of Japanese goverment.

Meanwhile in Tokyo, the Diet and uneasy ruling coalition of minor parties were in shock after results of referendum were announced. For more than three days of discussions, heavily arguing, swearing and even fighting, the goverment of Japan and Japan's last PM Morihiro Hosokawa announced their willingness and readiness to create "a united federal state with Russia, where Russians, Japanese and other national minorities will live in peace, prosperity and freedom". Thus, the project of Russo-Japanese Union was proposed.

Japan had it's own interest in the unification. In the early 90s' Japan suffered from economic crisis and, as popular opinion in RJU says, was on a brink of economic collapse. Hosokawa's government saw the RJU proposal as a chance to restart economy by accsessing cheap russian natural resources and a large population pool, comparable to Japan's own population (145 ml. in Russia and 125 ml. in Japan in 1994)

Not only Japanese were socked, Russia's political and emerging business elites were also shocked by results. After they were announced, Boris Yeltsin suffered a heart attack and due to his poor health, he resigned from the office on March 16th 1995, leaving the unification process to independent Russia's last PM and acting President, Victor Chernomyrdin.

But before Japan and Russian will fuse in one, there were problems to solve, and most important one was Chechnya and rising tensions in Northern Caucasus. The joint Russo-Japanese military operation in this mountainous republic was held from the end of 1994 to 1995 and finished in restored order in this region, but some chechen terrorist, like Shamil Basayev, Ahmat Kadyrovand others managed to escape first to Central Asia and then to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

After the dust of war was finally seteled, on April 18th 1997, the Russo-Japanese Union was formally established after a solemn ceremony in compromise capital of Novosibirsk. There, the history of independent Russia and Japans ends, but the history of RJU, a guiding light of peace and globalization for the whole world, begins.