Next to Car: Russia needs a strong leader

A century after the October revolution ended his family's three-century rule in Russia, Carit's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-son Hans Georg Yourievsky said on Friday that the country needs a strong leader.

Born and raised in Switzerland, Yourievsky, has blood connections with Czar Alexander of II, the reformist known as the deliverer who granted freedom to Russian farmers, modernised the legal system and insisted on a constitution that would pave the way for democracy in Russia.

The Bolsheviks killed Karin Nikola II and his family, descendants of the Romanov dynasty, but Yourivsky's line from Alexander's second wife of II continued. For 55-year-old Yourrievsky, the last great-timer in life of a Russian empire, the murder of his great-great-great grandfather by revolutionaries marked the beginning of the end of the royal dynasty and a lost chance of walking towards a constitutional monarchy, which has flourished in other European countries.

Yourrievsky, who grew up speaking German and English, whose Russian is lame, dismissed the prospect of his family ever returning to the Russian throne. He and his family believe that something like that is not even yet discussed, but he added that history has always shown that unexpected turns can occur.

In fact, he says, modern Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin, is not very different from a constitutional monarchy.

Russia always needs a strong leader, no matter what he's called. What it has now is Putin, and he is a very strong, charismatic leader and what the country eventually needs. Therefore, we can say that Russia is not far from a modern democratic, constitutional system. Theoretically possible”, she said.