Does the choice of peppers affect the ‘flavor of the heat’

Granted, my peppers were farmed in California, not India, but they should be well within an order of magnitude of its variety's rating.

Actually, they shouldn't necessarily. All chiles, are very sensitive to the environment they are grown in. Even trivial changes in temperature, humidity, and soil pH can affect the heat of the chile. The Naga Jolokia in particular can be at least as low as 500,000 Scoville units. The hottest one has been recorded at over 1 million. Many American growers intentionally grow them much milder than those found in India; this makes them much easier to sell.

The Scoville scale is a measure of capsaicin concentration. In other words, quantity of capsaicin per fixed volume. Originally, it was measured by a panel of five tasters who tasted a dilute solution of capsaicin oil which had been extracted from a fixed quantity of dried chile. The degree of dilution at which the capsaicin is undetectable is the Scoville rating.

Modern methods use high performance liquid chromatography to precisely the pungency units of a chile, this is equivalently the parts per million of capsaicin. Multiplying the pungency rating by 15 gives you the equivalent Scoville rating.

What does all this mean? Well, since it's a measure of concentration it's important to realize that by eating one chile or 20 chiles the concentration doesn't change. However, with more chiles you are exposing your mouth to a greater quantity of capsaicin. If this is what you mean by "intensity" then sure, it's more intense with an increase in volume. Personally I think of intensity as concentration instead of volume.

Those paragraphs should answer your question overall, but I'll go through your list just the same:

1. The intensity is the Scoville rating. Again, intensity to me equates to concentration.
2. The capsaicin is most concentrated in the seeds, so chewing them will release a greater quantity of it.
3. Not that I am aware of.
4. Not sure what you mean by cooked down, but yes both volume and concentration affect the quantity of capsaicin.
5. A larger fruit of the same Scoville rating (concentration) will contain a larger amount of capsaicin.
6. Yes, the capsaicin concentration is seven times greater.
7. Yes that is a reasonable use.

I think you've got a wide berth of possibilities but what's above seems pretty restricted. What you are listing above sounds like a pretty straight-forward Midwestern American chili. It has the features of the standard chili spices, beans and tomatoes, with a nice variety of meats.

• To try to engineer a Russian chili I would expect more indigenous foods.

As @Cold suggests, beets would be great to add for their sugar content. However, there are quite a few American recipes that utilize potatoes, so you might seek those out. Are there other vegetables to substitute that you recall as more native? Other beans maybe? How about caraway, dill, chervil, tarragon?

Vodka would seem like an easy route to go to appease the indigenous aspect, but I don't think it would yield much results in terms of impacting the flavor; especially in the context of the extant chili recipe. Unfortunately, I can't see the benefit of buffeting vodka against the flavors of cumin, coriander, clove, let alone hot peppers. On the other hand, Russians produce some amazing beers (I am a big fan of Baltika), and I would recommend looking into switching to a lager flavor or Imperial Stout as I mentioned above.

But for real, my spin would be to approach this from a Solyanka point of view (which would definitely give you ceiling room to try incorporating Medovukha); or really any of the other amazing cold Russian soups. Or perhaps try to incorporate mini dumplings like Pelmani, mini Kotlety, or use Shashlyk-style prepared meats for the chili. I would also consider trying to get some lamb in the recipe, in particular at the expense of the chicken.

But don't forget, chili is all about what you want to put into it (<-- self-promotional plug); not what the standard template lists.

• The romantic version of the American myth about chili (in particular, Texas Red chili) frequently revolves around Cowboys planting peppers and onions on their most traveled roads. They would be carrying dried meats and, at night under starry skies, use kettles to cook the stew that became known as chili.
• What kind of story of Russian kindred spirit do you want to weave with your chili?