This essay was written in response to Gideon Rachman’s invitation to readers to sit his ‘2066 history exam’. Of 170 entries, the FT is publishing the best five (see panel for the others). This piece addresses the question: Was Vladimir Putin a good or a bad tsar for Russia?

When Russia’s first freely elected (more or less) leader, Boris Yeltsin, resigned in 1999, the country’s progress depended upon his successor being more democratic, less corrupt and less drunk. It got one out of three.

The coldly sober Vladimir Putin created a hybrid regime as a tsar steeped in the oppressive methods of the Soviet era. He formally granted himself the old monarchist title just months before his demise at the paws of an insufficiently doped dancing bear during a tango for the broadcaster RT’s version of Strictly.