On November 7, the Communist party of the Russian Federation will celebrate the centenary of the 1917 revolution with a festive march and a gala reception. But President Vladimir Putin will be absent from the procession, and the evening event will take place at the Renaissance Moscow Monarch Centre, a nondescript conference hotel far from the Kremlin.

For Mr Putin, removing himself so far from a momentous historical anniversary is out of character — under his presidency, history has become an ever more important ideological tool for strengthening national unity and rallying public support.

Over the past decade, “Russia has taken to a cult of the past,” says Gennady Bordyugov, a historian and senior official at the Association of Researchers of Russian Society, which monitors public sentiment about the revolution.