Meat – Should leftover meat be stored in cooking juices

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?

Try making braised pork chops with onions. Salt and pepper then brown chops on both sides in a heavy frying pan or skillet. Remove chops, add a little oil if needed, and add a sliced onion, stirring occasionally until the onion is lightly browned. Add water or chicken stock or a combination to the onions to deglaze the pan, then nestle the chops back into the onions, cover and reduce the heat to a very low simmer. Cook this way for about a half hour to 45 minutes (test for fork-tenderness). Check occasionally to add more liquid as needed and to turn the chops.