... so, just another hint, or thought, or whatever. I have tried again to completely wipe the russian locale, then installed it via a .bin archive.
The basic installation looks normal (i.e. I get NO white screen on reboot, but the standard, "podoshtiytes poshaluysta..." screen while rebooting.) Afterwards, the home screen looks normal as well.
What I can confirm is the crash when selecting "Archived Items", for example. But this is most probably caused by "over-localized" locales, as previously pointed out.
I'm still intrigued why you folks get a white blanket screen. This shouldn't be happening, and I can't reproduce it here. ... any clues?