Stolypin

Russia, Putin said, quoting Pyotr Stolypin, an imperial Russian prime minister from early last century, was fighting for the “one historical supreme right of Russia: to be strong.”

At that same opera house, a teenage Paustovsky witnessed the assassination of reformist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, a crucial step in the lead-up to revolution.

Putin has a history of praising leaders sharing his own conservative views, including Tsar Alexander III and pre-revolutionary prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, both of whom have had monuments in their honour erected across the country.

In his chilling account of the Romanov dynasty, the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore quoted Pyotr Stolypin, who was interior minister for Nicholas II, the last of the czars: “In Russia, nothing is more dangerous than the appearance of weakness.”

Scherbakov said he has met Putin four or five times at unveilings of his statues, including those to Stolypin and Prince Vladimir and one called “The Wings,” a reflection on the price of victory in World War II, in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya.