Some Russians crave tsar days
Monarchy sympathisers are especially prevalent among the younger generation |
Mikhail Ustinov’s ancestors were executed in 1917 for supporting the tsar but a hundred years later, the 68-year-old yearns for the return of monarchy to Russia.
“Russians are monarchists in their soul, even though the Soviets tried to destroy our soul,” Ustinov, who is a self-proclaimed spokesman for the Moscow monarchist community, said in his small apartment on the outskirts of the Russian capital.
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ustinov has dressed in stylised military fatigues in a nod to the officers of the Tsarist army who were fiercely loyal to the monarch and heavily persecuted after the October Revolution.
Executed with his wife and children by the Bolsheviks in 1918, the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, was rehabilitated and buried in Saint-Petersburg in 1998 and canonised in 2000 by the Orthodox Church.
“I want to die wearing my uniform and declaring love for the tsar, like my grandfather, great-grandfather and all of my family,” said Ustinov, a portrait of Nicholas II behind him.
Ustinov said his family was decimated during the revolution, which he calls a “coup d’etat”.
Survey figures
More than 28 per cent of Russians are in favour of the country becoming a monarchy again one day, according to a study by VTsIOM, a state pollster, released in March. That figure increased from 22 per cent in 2006.
Monarchy sympathisers are especially prevalent among the younger generation: 33 per cent among those between 18 and 24 years old and 35 per cent of 25-34 year-olds.
“We see clearly that the ‘Soviet’ generations resist this idea more than the younger people, for whom monarchy is one possible system of governance,” said sociologist Stepan Lvov, who helped organise the poll. “It’s as if the Soviet vaccine doesn’t work on them,” he added.
On the contrary, for young Russians monarchy is “rather attractive for its rationality and effectiveness”, Lvov said, adding they no longer see it as the antithesis of liberty and democracy.
But for some, Russia has already become a monarchy of sorts, with President Vladimir Putin reigning over the country for 18 years and widely expected to extend his rule by another six years in a 2018 vote. “Vladimir Putin is already a tsar; he acts like a tsar,” said Yelena Melnikova, who studies Orthodox icon restoration.
The 22-year-old believes that eventually the monarchy will replace the “political hypocrisy” of today’s Russia and mark the return of “real Russian values”.