On April 27, 1906, Czar Nicholas II welcomed the elected members of Russia’s first Parliament to his residence at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to read a speech from the throne. “For the first time in this elegant palace built by Empress Elizabeth … appeared a crowd of common-looking people,” recalled Foreign Minister Alexander Izvolsky, “Yesterday’s Russia stood face to face with the Russia of tomorrow.” After the ceremony, members of the State Duma boarded a steamboat that took them down the Neva River to the Tauride Palace, the 18th-century residence of Prince Grigory Potemkin that had been remodeled into the Parliament building....
