Some compared him to Nicholas I, the Tsar who crushed the Decembrists' uprising in 1825.
BBC: How Putin is inspired by history
2.
Of course, the original Decembrists did the same almost two centuries ago and were rewarded, for their trouble, with arrest and exile to Siberia.
WSJ: The Young Generation Behind Russia's Protests
3.
And he explains the group's name comes from history, from the Decembrists, Russian revolutionaries who led an unsuccessful uprising against the czar in 1825.