Putin has failed to build us a great future, so he has built us a great past.
Rising from his orderly desk in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin picked up his navy blue suit jacket from the back of his chair and put it on. Ready for his fourth inauguration, he strode out of his office and down the long white corridors of the Senate Palace, occasionally glancing at paintings of Russia’s vast landscapes hung on the walls. He descended a red-carpeted, marble staircase under a magnificent chandelier and soaring ceilings adorned with gold trim. High oaken doors opened before him and he passed out into a courtyard, where he boarded the Russian-made Cortege limousine (instead of a Mercedes-Benz of previous, more Western years) that would take him, surrounded by motorcycles with flashing lights, across the Kremlin grounds to the Grand Kremlin Palace.
Arriving at the Grand Palace as the Kremlin bells struck noon, he exited the Cortege and entered the lavishly decorated halls, where a six-thousand-strong audience of ministers, top businessmen, Orthodox Church leaders, and other members of the country’s elite applauded the sixty-six-year-old president as he set off down the red carpet toward Andreyevsky Hall, where the Supreme Soviet once met and where he himself had thrice taken his oath of office. The hall was also the site of festivities for the coronation of three czars. Every channel in Russia was broadcasting these momentous, thoroughly choreographed moments, some set to a song from Mikhail Glinka’s patriotic opera, A Life for the Czar.
Amid such palatial grandeur the newly reelected president looked small but by no means humble. He certainly looked in charge. Before his previous inaugurations—in 2000 and 2004—Putin, dressed in a leather jacket, had traversed the Red Square, the very image of a young leader destined to modernize Russia. In 2012, following widespread demonstrations against his return to the presidency, his large motorcade (“like Stalin’s,” some commented at the time) sped through a downtown Moscow blocked off and emptied of pedestrians, presumably to thwart protests.
The inauguration that Russia’s state-controlled television stations broadcast aimed to display the lavish traditions and continuity of Putin’s presidency. Clever web enthusiasts set the president’s walk to the Bee Gees’ song “Staying Alive,” showing Putin was more of a survivor than a savior, anxiously maneuvering among the pitfalls and perils of Russian politics.
Indeed, Putin’s next term, scheduled to last until 2024, could be a dangerous one for him. Segments of the economic elite, hit hard by multiplying Western sanctions, have been grumbling louder than ever, although Putin might find ways to appease or undermine them, as he has before. So far, the 2014 drop in oil prices and the sanctions have not shaken the system, but they may, especially if the economy slides. After all, growth has only twice approached three percent since 2008.
For now, the president’s control over politics, the economy, and increasingly society appears secure. However, his growing reliance on authoritarian measures and propaganda may begin to diminish the public mandate he has enjoyed almost since coming to power. State control of television, from where most Russians get their news, has given him an air of omnipotence—he is, truly, as television would have it, the Russian Santa Claus, the miracle worker who has “raised Russia off its knees.” Although the Kremlin has failed to prevent tragedies—tragic fires and plane crashes, among other things, show this—the president has certainly restored Russians’ sense that they belong to a great world power. The public perception, enhanced by the news reporting, is that the governors, mayors, and other regional authorities, and not the president, should answer for calamities.
Notwithstanding the quasicoronation described at the epilogue’s opening, Putin’s grip on power might weaken. He has so adeptly manipulated the country’s political and economic oligarchs that this hasn’t happened—at least openly. Who might replace him, if he gets ousted or quits because he’s tired or just plain bored? The names of defense minister Sergei Shoigu or Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin have been mooted, although equally as potential candidates for losing their jobs instead—both may have gotten too much power and visibility for Putin’s liking. Dmitry Medvedev, the 2008 Putin pick for president and now the prime minister, may be a safe choice that Putin would favor as a replacement once again.
The Russian constitution bars Putin from seeking another, fifth term in office, and no one has talked seriously—so far—about amending it so that he could run again. In any case, should Putin choose to leave the presidency voluntarily, without installing an obedient replacement, he may find himself in jeopardy. He certainly knows the fate of previous KGB leaders. Stalin’s dreaded secret police chief Lavrenty Beria found himself, after the dictator suddenly died of a stroke in 1953, sentenced to death for “spying against the state.” (Stalin’s other two secret police heads met similar ends.) With the exceptions of Khrushchev and Gorbachev, all Soviet leaders died in office; Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, survived by handing power over to Putin.
In his years in power the Russian president has consolidated and strengthened the security forces, intimidated and jailed opponents, and muzzled the media and courts. If he steps down, the system he has created may turn against him, using his own methods.
What we saw during our travels through Russia’s eleven time zones gave us little reason to predict doom for Putin, or for the country, at least in the immediate term. People are, as a rule, living better than ever before, freer than ever before, and—where public finances allow—local governments are overhauling infrastructure and bettering life for their citizens. In any case, more than twenty-five years of capitalism and, roughly, a decade of prosperity under Putin have done much to transform Russia from the broken-down, chaotic wreck of a country it was during Yeltsin’s time. The people we met criticized Putin or praised him to us, in most places without apparent fear of being monitored by the authorities. (Broadcasting such opinions via the media would probably be another story.) Almost all seemed resigned to Putin’s domination of the political scene; in fact, politics, unless we brought it up, was not on people’s minds, as it often is in Moscow or Saint Petersburg.
But tentative harbingers of change are appearing—namely, the many anticorruption opposition centers Alexey Navalny has managed to establish around Russia in recent years. Traumatic memories of economic hardship and international humiliation suffered during the Yeltsin years once mobilized people in support of Putin, but they have, naturally, faded with time; his success abroad, such as in Syria, and his much-lauded annexation of Crimea will eventually lose their capacity to inspire.
Despite Putin’s lasting popularity, the Kremlin has certainly recognized the emergence of discontent and its potential for the negative consequences to his power. Hence growing restrictions on the internet and attempts to block social media sites whose traffic the security systems cannot monitor. The police, in curtailing unauthorized demonstrations, have used violence and arrests far more frequently than they did in 2011–2012, when far more protesters turned out. In the last decade, the young in particular have begun to believe that society has not changed in accordance with their expectations, which led to disappointment. In recent years applications for immigration to the United States alone have tripled in number; the American Embassy has received more than 2,500 in 2017, the highest number since the early post-Soviet years.[54] Whether to stay or leave Russia is a frequent topic among members of the middle class, especially in Moscow and other big cities. Even some of those accepting of Putin’s policies seem to be yearning for fresh faces. We heard this in Omsk, we heard this in Magadan.
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Margarita Devyatkina, Polina Khimshiashvili, “SMI Soobshchili O Rekordnom Chisle Prosb Rossiyan Ob Ubezhishche V SSHA” [Mass Media Has Reported the Record Asylum Applications to the USA], RBC, May 3, 2018.