It is of course not true that Russia has nothing of European tradition. But the distinctions evidently do matter. Those distinctions are not falsified by mere observations how progressive Ivan III was, or that Lithuanian and Prussian states were even more patrimonial. As Pipes admits as well, Russia's history is  a struggle of conservative and what we may call liberal forces. But persistent lack of success of most progressive reforms and revolutions only shows the strength of conservative forces - patrimonalism always comes back. The way Davydov described Yanov's work is a bit simplistic: "dispelling myths" of Russia's non-European nature does not mean you can set in stone "Russia is just as Europe" and dismiss all arguments that contradict that.

Here is a bit of European Russian history: the original Russian state, Kiev Russ, was established by Variags - the Vikings that came from the North down the great Russian rivers. I have no doubt that both Russians and Scandinavians are proud of that. But still, this is a deviation from usual European histories. In particular, Christianity and eventually the Roman law came up differently.