Best place to speak Russian, outside of Russia?

Всем привет!

Hi guys, so this summer will mark my journey of learning russian for about 1.5 years! I feel like I'm doing quite well as I have immersed myself from an early stage and speak to a good friend on WhatsApp quite regularly who is native Russian:)

I have a problem, I feel like I'm burnt out, and i think one of those reasons is, I'm doing all this learning for no particular goal other than I love the Russian language and the history of your country, which goes along way but I need a new drive.

I want to visit Russia so so badly, but it's just way too expensive. It's definitely on the bucket list, but not yet. Plus I would love to be B2/C1 when i go there!

I visited Latvia just over a year ago, and i tried speaking it there, but i didn't know too much and Latvians didn't take it to well when I tried to speak Russian lol

Ive thought about Moldova/Armenia but apart from that in clueless, any suggestions?