Back in '25, Russians have had enough. The despot were getting too powerful. Common folk suffered greatly. So 3000 people staged a revolt in the center of the capital and...

And failed miserably. The government easily squashed the rebellion. Insurgents were executed or exiled. Russia emerged as an even bigger dictatorship. Wait, did we say "back in '25"?

That's 1825, when the so-called Decembrist revolt was the first real attempt to overthrow the Russian government. The Decembrists were a group of mostly army officers and nobility, influenced by Europe's enlightenment thinkers. There was even a Decembrist Jew!

Yes, just one Jew, out of 3000. Well, not exactly a Jew: Grigory Peretz was the son of one of the wealthiest men in Russia, merchant Abram Peretz, but the family converted out. (You think the Decembrists would ever accept Grigory if he actually practiced Judaism? They weren't THAT enlightened!)

At the end, the Decembrists are remembered as that first spark that ignited Russia's transformation. So, now, almost two hundred years later...

Same old Russia. Nothing has really changed. It's just that no one is rebelling.