One recent Sunday in the city of Kazan, the capital of Russia’s republic of Tatarstan, dozens of children milled outside the entrance to a glitzy new exhibition about the Romanovs, the dynasty that ruled the country for 300 years. The largest group was from Kazan Federal University’s elementary school: aged seven to 12, with their parents in tow.

The guide, Olga Solntseva, had little trouble directing their attention. Interactive screens showed animated battle reconstructions. Multiple choice quizzes lit up touchscreen tables. It was a celebration of the sanctity of statehood and hard-won victories over recidivist invaders.

On a map of the Russian Empire’s westernmost reaches, Solntseva indicated a region in today’s Ukraine now claimed by Russian-backed separatists. “Do we know what Ukraine is?” she asked the group. “Yes. It’s a bad country,” one boy offered. The past would resonate with the present throughout the tour.

The displays covering the Romanovs are part of a giant exhibition entitled “Russia: My History,” which opened in Kazan to major fanfare late last year. But it is actually one of 17 such exhibitions that have been set up nationwide with lavish state funding since 2015 — from Russia’s Far East, to Dagestan in the south.