Have you ever dreamed of a time travel? With our Twitter digital time machine, we take you 100 years back to relive the Russian Revolution. Dozens of historical accounts from Tsar Nicholas II to Vladimir Lenin are live-tweeting the events day-by-day as if Twitter existed a century ago.• #1917LIVE hashtag brings together separate Twitter accounts in the name of all key historical characters of that time (like Lenin, Stalin, Kerensky, Tsar Nicholas and his family, Imperial generals, politicians, but also ordinary people like factory workers, students, farmers). Characters’ accounts create an alternative reality of the year 1917, united in historical Twitter universe under the flagship feed of the Russian Telegraph (RT), a fictional media outlet.One of project’s key objectives is to educate and inspire the audience to learn, while setting new best-in-class Twitter standards.

Just imagine, Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II after signing a forced abdication in March 1917 instead of usual cigarette is first reaching for… his iPhone. #1917LIVE is the project which aims to tell the story of the Russian Revolution through real-time tweeting from a network of linked accounts. To promote the project we tried to animate the idea on screen with a series of teasers. The series consist of 4 online teaser videos featuring historical figures – Russia’s last Emperor Nicholas Romanov, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, the student living in Petrograd and an Army captain. The teasers recreate the events and atmosphere of 1917: the day the Tsar abdicated on a train, times of hunger in Petrograd, soldiers, Vladimir Lenin’s defining speech. Once the viewer is immersed into the intrigue of 1917 – a sudden twist occurs: all historic characters grab their mobile devices and casually log into Twitter.

Real-time live tweeting which creates a highly engaging experience – our audience gets a chance to follow and interact with historic figures themselves almost like via digital time machine, take part in polls, Q&As and many more.

• #1917CROWD - social community element which allows anyone to join the role-play with personal historically authentic account of that time

• series of online teasers and promos filmed in authentic locations and historic entourage;

• Series of unique sketches filmed VR/360 format

• online map under #LeninTracker hashtag which allowed to follow Vladimir Lenin’s 7-day-trip from Switzerland to Russia in real time

• collaborations with historians such as renowned British author Helen Rappaport who is running one of the accounts, writers (Paulo Coelho tweeting for Mata Hari), artists (French painter Alexandra Lopatic tweeting for Prokudin-Gorsky)

• 31/12/2016-31/12/2017

• Mostly Twitter. But also Periscope, Facebook, YouTube and special website http://1917.rt.com