That would be great to see a Russian team compete in FIRST... or a Ukrane (sp?) team, or a team from another former Soviet controlled country.
The Soviets had tons of excellent engineers, and I would assume that is still true today. The Moscow State University is impressively huge and has a legendary engineering school which has turned out engineers for decades.
One of the latest engineering trends, TRIZ, came from a guy from Russia named Altshuller. TRIZ outlines the method of the process of innovation and can take you step by step through an inventive process. For more on TRIZ, here is a link (there are loads if you do a search on TRIZ):
TRIZ Journal
I was lucky enough to spend a week in Russia when I was a Senior in college, and it was a very eye-opening experience.
Of course, for a Russian FIRST team, the big hurdle would be travel. What makes the most sense would be for them to compete at New York City, where it would probably be the cheapest airfare from Eastern Europe.
I'm sure that a properly supported Russian team could make an immediate impact on the FIRST competition and would come up with some very innovative solutions to a FIRST game.
Andy B.