My friend has no significant "hooks" in Russia but she has had no difficulty getting a Shengen visa to visit Spain.
She has needed proof of accomodations, hotel or resort reservations in her name and tickets for transport to and from.

I wanted to show her my favorite city, London, but she was very apprehensive about getting a visa to visit the UK.  I encouraged her to try.  She applied and had an interview and easily received her visa, again proof of accomodation and transport was required.    

She is a very intelligent and attractive lady and I imagine she had little difficulty charming the British official.

One reason for the Russians to be apprehensive is that at the US Embassy if their request for a visa is turned down their passport is stamped to indicate that they were refused a visa.  I do not know if the Brits do this or not.   All the Russians I have met hate the prospect of having their passport stamped this way.

On the day I accompanied my friend to apply for a tourist visa at the US Embassy in Moscow the bureaucrats were turning everyone down.  The clerk questioned my friend as to the reason for her visit and when she said it was to visit with me and my family, he asked if we were contemplating marriage.  I said not until she had a chance to visit America and meet my family and friends and have some confidence that she could be happy there.  The clerk said, "No good, what you need is a K1 visa."  He had his stamp poised to stamp her passport when I protested and requested that he not stamp her passport.  I asked if there was not some possible way to avoid this stamping of the Russian passport.  He thought for a moment and said, "Well, if you withdraw the application, I guess there is no need to stamp the passport."  I reached under the glass partition and pulled back the application forms and the passport and said, "done."  Of course Uncle Sam kept our application fee.

Yes, I have also come across this fear of having the passport stamped with a refusal; presumably they are afraid (with some justification probably) that it will jeopardize any future applications; the embassy official will look at the previous stamp and assume the worst, without checking the reason for the refusal. It's a strange logic that they would withhold the stamp if you withdrew the application, but that they didn't mention this until you did. The worry is, if they process the application behind closed doors and you don't know it's been stamped as refused until they hand the passport back her.

When I go to the embassy with my girlfriend I'll be sure to attach her passport to a piece of string when we hand it over the counter!!! Only civil servants could come up with logic like that, just goes to show the absurdity of bureaucracy.