A "frosty Saturday" Feb. 4 confirmed the deadlocked nature of the situation that has ripened in Russia for more than a decade of Vladimir Putin's rule (as president and senior partner in the infamous "tandem").
The elections March 4 unequivocally mean a dozen more years of Putin and of the unsatisfactory status quo. In the absence of a strong consolidating idea, a failure of those elections (whatsoever the cause) threatens to result in "multicolored confrontations" and chaos. That's why any positive alternative — even if at first it looks not quite feasible — should be welcome, especially an alternative that is in accord with national tradition and promises to open new historic vistas.
I put forward such an alternative in my previous article: a peaceful restoration in Russia of the centuries-old institution of the hereditary monarchy in its modernized and constitutional, or parliamentarian, variety.