Looking at the etymology of the English words provides a clue for cultures that use languages from the PIE language family. The directions reference the sun: the word south refers to the sunny side, east to the sunrise, and west to the sunset. If you orient yourself to face east, north is to your left. From a Eurocentric point of view, e.g. to an Ancient Greek or Roman, Russia is east (sunrise) and Britain is west (sunset).

As for why maps usually place west on the left and east on the right -- or more particularly, place north at the top -- /u/khosikulu discusses the development of the cartographic convention in Why have cartographers always pictured north as up and south as down?, with followup comments in Why do maps universally have north as up?