On display is the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is pushing a strong traditionalist agenda. The church was actively behind a recent law banning the “propaganda of sexual minorities,” aimed at Russia’s beleaguered LGBT community. The Kremlin, while perhaps not the main driving force of the conservative wave, has clearly acquiesced to it and President Vladimir Putin is expected to sign the new law.

“Although priests do not play a politically active role, we see the positions of the Orthodox Church gradually attaining official status” as the church attempts to regain its czarist-era place as ideological bulwark of the state, says Nikolai Petrov, a political scientist with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “This suits the Kremlin, which constantly criticizes the West for abandoning its traditional principles while Russia is supposedly a bastion of good old family values. The international dimension isn’t the main reason for the upsurge of social conservatism in Russia, but it’s definitely there.”