Story highlights Social media project relives run up to Russian revolution of 1917

Styled to emulate Facebook, a timeline reveals months leading up to Bolshevik Revolution

(CNN) What was life like for Russians such as Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin in the months leading up to "the most tragic moment" of that nation's history: the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917?

Mikhail Zygar, a journalist from Russia has launched an ambitious social media project with the aim of answering that very question.

He set up a networking website titled 1917: Free History which is similar to Facebook with the 'friends' based on the real-life heroes and villains of the revolution.

On a timeline, the characters are posting messages, pictures and even videos in a mock-contemporaneous account of events during the weeks and months leading up to it -- all based on historical evidence.

"It creates an atmosphere of this day, but 100 years ago and it gives the possibility to look at it from the inside and to learn first-hand, just what those characters were thinking, what are they afraid, or reaming of,"' Zygar told CNN.

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