Regional variation of Russian language?

I know that all widspread languages of the world have different variaties, for example English, Spanish, French, Arabic. For Example Arabic in Egypt is very different from Arabic in Morocco. But Russian (although it is spoken throughout the vast territory) seems to be the same in St. Petersburg and in Vladivostok. Can anyone explain why is that? Or maybe I am wrong?

Can anyone please? Maybe because it's one country with the same standards.

Perhaps the Russians who reached Siberia arrived there in very recent times indeed; perhaps the 19th or even the 20th century. That would explain it all.

At the time when Arabic was spread in a uniform form (7th-8th century) the Slavic languages were also quite uniform! And then Russian has developed just like one of the forms of Arabic.
Many regional dialects in Russian has died out because of the very strong emphazise on the literary language?

As I know, there is some regional variation within Russia, for example, a difference in saying words like "moloko" ("milk") in the area around Moscow on the one hand and some southern regions (mainly the area of the river Volga) on the other. I recall this being said by a Russian poster back in the summer. But on the whole I second Jordi that the lack of really great differences can be due to the fact that the Russian population spread all over the country no earlier than the late 18th or the early 19th century. There are still quite large groups of the indigenous population around the Volga (Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples) and in Siberia.

It's a good question. I live at the Far East of Russia north of Vladivostok and we call ourselves the Far-Easterners (dalnevostochiniki), not the Sibirians (sibiryaki) and this is the first difference. I guess that Sibiria ends somewhere at Baikal, because ppl living east of Baikal call themselves zabaikaltsi. They are all Russians. Native people, living in the same territories, can name their nationality, if you ask them where they are from.
Despite the relative homogenity of Russian lexicon (there are some diversity in words meaning of herbs, animals, forests etc throughout Russia, mostly in villages) the most striking is the difference of pronounciation. Accents are everywhere. Typical (and classical) Russian accents are two: in Moscow and in Vologda. The both concern vowels. Moscovites like to draw the vowel 'a', while inhabbitants of Vologda prefer against rules to pronounce the vowel 'o' (instead of common replacement for 'a') in the unstressed syllable.
For example 'moloko' will sound as:
mahlahko in Moscow
moloko in Vologda
and [mull uck 'o] for the standard
All accents are a food for jokes:)
Another accent is Ukranian and it can be heard a great deal over here. I suppose due to the peasantry reform by Minister Stolypin, who sent in the begining of 20th century lots of people from the west of Russian Empire and provided them with money for settlement. But, of course, the biggest movement of population into Siberia started in the era of Stalin's industrialization.
Another accents could be found in national territories.Tartars adore to drop vowels at all.
Well, it's a long story...

Here in New York there are many people from Uzbekistan and they have a weird accent. It sounds Turkic to me.

They sound weird to me too. Russian is Slavic language. The Uzbeks are different lingusitic group, I guess.
But they might know Russian. It was obligatory subject for all in the USSR.

I guess Russian is still a lingua franca for much of the ex-Soviet countries, partly because there are quite large numbers of Russians living there. Even in countries which are not on too friendly terms with Russia, it is spoken quite well. I recently heard a Georgian official on the radio speaking with what I would say was an impeccabble Russian accent.

Some Georgians have no Georgian accent at all. They lived their whole life in Russia and even turned into oligarchs. Examples of are plentiful...And who is Russian? I am not Russian. I am a mix of genes (Ukranian, Belorussian,Tartar, Mordva and who-knows-what-else). I just feel myself Russian and speak this language.

I have been to Kiev, Ukraine 3 years ago. They spoke mostly Russian on the streets, though Russian language had no official status (and hasn't now) in this country. Two these languages are much alike, and the Ukranians switching both languages in writing do lots of mistakes.That was told me by my aunt, living there about 30 years.

Yes, Russian differs very slightly. Despite a huge teritory, Russia is one country, different regions of which are quite actively interacting, so the language have no chance to differ to a greater degree. But there are some regional slangs or dialects, which differ (at most) in pronounciation and in style, remaining easily understandable for every Russian.

The modern Russian begins from Pushkin and Lermontov - famous Russian poets, 1800.

I think that literature and radio/TV made this effect - gomogenous language.

Plus Stalin's reforms and system - all people were enforced to learn the same things.

Plus - peasants were enforced to leave country and work in towns and learn in High Schools - that was the only way to survive in conditions where all food and means were taken away from peasant families by the force of Stalin's government.

Well, maybe I did not clearly differentiate between these two concepts: dialects and standard varieties. English, Spanish, Arabic etc. may have many standard varieties, since they are spoken in many different countries, each may have their own standard variety, like e.g. American English, British English, Australian English etc. Russian has only one standard variety, since Russia is one country, huge though it is. What concerns dialects, well maybe there are regional dialects in Russian, but the differences between them are not very big, not nearly as big as between dialects in Britain, let alone the Chinese "dialects". Now, what about Belarussian and Ukranian? Are they not the remains of what used to be merely "dialects" of Russian which split apart and were recognized as "separate languages"?

Vytenis:
The question would be (I don't know) if Belarussian and Ukranian nationalists will not say that the "dialect" is Russian. Have they had a separate literature for centuries? Have they had a standard language for centuries? If that is so although the languages may be close they would clearly be different languages.