From the tsar's mouth

My office door is basically Snapchat IRL: I tape pictures on it, and after some period of time, I take them down.

Since yesterday was the first work day of 2017, I put up the meme from my post here; just the photo with the Russian text over it. There aren’t that many of my colleagues who'd recognize the tsar (which I find rather sad—there are Ph.D.s on every floor), much less be able to read the Cyrillic alphabet (about which I am less judgmental).

There is one, however—as it happens, my manager. After he earned a degree in Russian Studies, he went to Moscow to bring democracy to the Former Soviet Union. It didn’t stick, of course, but I don't hold that against him, because apparently democracy didn’t stick here, either; it just took us longer to realize it.

Anyhow, he looked at the photo, translated the words in his mind and asked, “Is that an actual quote from him [Nikolai]?”

“I found it on Twitter, so probably yeah…”