Tragedy or triumph? Russians agonise over how to mark 1917 revolutions | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/17/russia-1917-revolutions-legacy-lenin-putin
On a recent evening at Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery, Vladimir Lenin paced back and forth, debating the finer points of Marxist theory, Vladimir Mayakovsky thundered staccato lines of poetry from atop a pedestal, and the monk Grigory Rasputin mused ominously on the future of Russia.
The event, in which hundreds of modern Moscow’s artistic and creative elite dressed as tsarist-era aristocrats, ate black caviar by the spoonful and drank champagne, was the launch party for an ambitious new project designed to bring the events of 1917 to life for modern Russians 100 years later.
As the country enters the centenary of the tumultuous year that ended tsarism and ushered in the 70-year communist experiment, President Vladimir Putin faces the dilemma of how to commemorate the events that had such a huge effect on Russia and the world.