Back in the Saddle

On May 7 Vladimir Putin’s motorcade glided into the Kremlin according to the usual carefully scripted choreography. Guests kicked off his historic third term with fried duck, Kamchatka crab and sturgeon in champagne sauce.

Yet as Russians watched the live broadcast of Putin’s Mercedes careening through Moscow, surrounded by motorcycles, it was the emptiness of the streets that was most striking. Bloggers compared the eerily empty Russian capital with Washington D.C. – filled with cheering Americans – during Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration.

It is especially symbolic this year that Putin was sworn in at the Kremlin fortress – where no guest was accidental, and no regular citizen could sneak a peek. After all, the majority of Muscovites did not vote for him. If Moscow alone had chosen Russia’s next president, Putin would have had to suffer through the embarrassment of a run-off election for the first time in his life.*

Protesters that lined the boulevards where the new president’s car was set to pass were swept up by riot police and pushed toward a neighboring square. Jean Jacques, a café on a side street, had its tables and chairs overturned in a scuffle when police suddenly became worried that people enjoying their coffee might have hidden, nefarious intentions (perhaps they were intending to throw a croissant at the president?).

Putin’s return to the Kremlin came on the heels of months of unprecedented protests, which his supporters dismiss as the work of a vocal minority rather than evidence of broad dissent. The last of the protests ended in clashes with police, and while the reasons for the violence are unclear, both sides are already mythologizing the event in order to assert their righteousness.

Meanwhile, the Russian parliament has passed a new law that would make any large gatherings illegal without city hall approval. Some have noted that the measure, if followed to the letter, would make even weddings illegal, yet no one is even trying to deny that the regulation will only affect those suspected of opposing the current regime. Recently, a young man in Ufa was jailed for 15 days for spitting on Putin’s portrait during a one-man protest (which does not require approval). He said he only sneezed.

It is more or less clear that the protest movement has not accomplished anything it has sought: new elections were not called; Election Committee Chairman Vladimir Churov received a medal instead of getting fired; and promised gubernatorial elections are looking more and more like a sham (most governors up for reelection this year conveniently resigned, and then being reappointed for another five years, thus avoiding elections). Yet many Russians sense something new in the air, a growing awareness of civil society that will probably not go away.

What is more, the road ahead for Putin is sure to be rocky: an economic downturn seems in the offing, thanks to European troubles; the price of oil is falling; capital flight is on the rise, requiring the government to dig into its reserves; and the Kremlin’s stance on issues like Syria may cause it to lose a few friends internationally, possibly undermining Moscow’s relationship with the United States, which has been on the mend.

In short, the next six years may not be easy ones for Vladimir Putin. Or for Russia.

* Putin won the presidential poll with 63.6 percent of the vote. His result in the capital was his lowest support anywhere in Russia (48.7 percent) and the only region where he got less than 50 percent of the vote. Just 49 percent of the electorate voted. Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov came in second with 17.18% of the vote; Mikhail Prokhorov was third with 7.98 percent.