My O1 razors (of a whopping 3 I have made) were hard as hell. Major pain to set the initial bevel, and then a pain thereafter. That's why I bought the Chosera 1k. But to be honest, I also used peel and stick diamond film on a marble tile. the 15 micron cuts pretty well, but you'd better be close already, as it's not going to remove a pile of steel, especially with wide bevels. Also, my lime green Nakayama cuts like crazy, but at a fine grit. My initial edges chipped and failed a lot, but looking back, I wonder if the edges might have been decarburized a bit. Once they were properly set and honed, the O1 left a nice, long-lived edge. I'm not really familiar with any other steels at this point (other than some 'real' razors - my Sheffield, some Solingens, etc).
One thing that really got me was some oxidization on the spine side of a razor at the tip. It took forever to get my honing to cut through it and level out a bevel. It was like filing through welded steel and coming across a piece of slag that's harder, except this was just black surface pitting. Long story short, the hard synthetic hones and fast Japanese stones worked for me, as did PSA diamond film.
I've never held a Russian razor, but if they are as hard as that, I bet if you get a nice edge, it will stay for a while.