(AFP/Getty Images) Czar Nicholas II and the Russian imperial family pose for a photograph taken in 1917, before the Russian Revolution. As current President Vladimir Putin's rule becomes more autocratic, the Kremlin resurrected and romanticised personalities from Russia's czarist days -- with its own spin. However, the Kremlin is increasingly concerned the wave of nostalgia may be surging beyond its control, as polls show a quarter of Russians support reinstating the monarchy. As a result, the Russian government has stepped in once more to redirect the conversation. (HULTON ARCHIVE/Getty Images) A crowd gathers in St. Petersburg, then Petrograd, during the Russian Revolution. Few Russians or Russia watchers expected the rag-tag Bolsheviks to rise to power, not when more established groups dominated the political scene in 1917. Similarly, in the late 1990s, then-President Boris Yeltsin chose a fringe politician, Vladimir Putin, to lead Russia's security services.