I've always wondered why it took so long for North America to be "discovered" when its relatively close to Russia. This might be a stupid question but I've always wondered why North America doesn't have a a more Rssian presence.
The simple answer is that Russia did not always cover the amount of territory it does today. The core of what would become modern Russia lies in what is now European Russia as the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, later the Tsardom of Russia, and finally the Russian Empire.
The expansion of Russia across Siberia is a very involved story of its own, and is better explored by: /u/treebalamb here, while questions of how to relate Russian expansion across northern Asia to more of what we think of as "European colonialism" are examined by /u/Kochevnik81 here.
Much of this depends on how you're defining 'the people of Russia', as the answer will change depending on who counts under that label. More can always be said on the matter, so if anyone would like to contribute further as to trans-Bering matters, please go ahead and do so! For the meantime, here are some previous questions on just this topic that you may find interesting:
And a further tip of the hat to Kochevnik81, because they did all the hard work on this compilation last month.