Lessons from History: Russia’s Parliament Turns 105
29 Apr 2011 EWR Online
Vladimir Kara Murza
On April 27, 1906, Czar Nicholas II welcomed the elected members of Russia’s first Parliament to his residence at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to read a speech from the throne. “For the first time in this elegant palace built by Empress Elizabeth … appeared a crowd of common-looking people,” recalled Foreign Minister Alexander Izvolsky, “Yesterday’s Russia stood face to face with the Russia of tomorrow.” After the ceremony, members of the State Duma boarded a steamboat that took them down the Neva River to the Tauride Palace, the 18th-century residence of Prince Grigory Potemkin that had been remodeled into the Parliament building....
