"Uninspired" is a little unfair – the Soviet Union took the PDP-11 architecture to strange new heights, once they had integrated it into a small 40-pin DIP package, and then later QFP: home computers with surprisingly good demoscene capabilities [1], little engineer's calculators with full QWERTY keyboards that ran BASIC programs [2], etc. DEC: when you care enough to steal the very best.
Funnily enough, the 1801 microprocessor [1] wasn't stolen from DEC. Or rather, the instruction set was the only thing stolen. The 1801 was a new Soviet design originally with its own instruction set. It was later adapted to the PDP-11, probably because of the popularity of the PDP-11 and its software in the USSR. DEC never manufactured anything like the 1801, targeted more as a microcontroller than as a microprocessor. (Soviet military and aviation industries were the original intended use.)
[1] the UKNC, with two LSI-11 compatibles on the same Qbus – one as a CPU, one for IO – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKNC
[2] https://gregescov.tripod.com/calc.htm