When you fly visually in close line astern on your leader and he manoeuvres in pitch and roll you see him positioned against the outside world in a very instinctive and unambiguous way. You are never in any doubt what he is doing. You may not like what he is doing but that is a different issue.
When you fly a Russian artificial horizon the little aeroplane symbol is not YOU but your leader and the glass of the instrument face is your windscreen. If you don’t like what your leader is doing use your controls instinctively to make ‘him’ fly straight and level or whatever you would like him to do.
In the Russian A/H the aeroplane symbol is free to roll (but NOT pitch) with respect to the instrument panel while the world behind it is free to pitch with respect to the instrument panel (but NOT roll) This makes it very easy to design an instrument that does not topple.
Before the days of Master Reference Gyros and the like (some 50 plus years ago) the Russians tried both ‘our’ and ‘their’ approach to attitude displays. They preferred their idea because it did not topple. I can only agree with them.
I have only flown a Russian A/H once. There was cloud from 300 ft to 18000ft. I did some quite harsh manoeuvring in the cloud as well as later between layers but because I had sat in the bath the night before and decided the display had to be like flying line astern and controlling my leader remotely (I had wanted to do that so many times in the past…) I found in flight that I had not the slightest problem getting my head round what to do.
But like so many aspects of instrument flying you must get your head sorted before you start. It is NO use getting airborne and hoping inspiration will sort you out.
More recently I decided to teach myself to fly an expensive model aeroplane by R/C. The ailerons reverse when it flies towards you. All my years of ordinary flying experience were then a problem. I won’t bore you with the solution I came up with because this tread is about real aeroplanes but it just requires a PLAN – as does flying a Russian A/H if you have flown the other sort for 40 years.