Caroline Walton, author of The Besieged: A Story of Survival, on what Putin's election victory may mean for Russia.
So Putin has won and there are protests. Yet there is no doubt that he enjoys a lot of popularity. When I was in Russia in the 1990s I grew used to the refrain ‘We are wild people. We need a strong leader to keep us under control.’ That included quite a bit of Stalin-nostalgia (and also ‘why did you get rid of your Iron Lady?’). The chaos of the Yeltsin years reinforced this mind-set. These days, however, some sections of the population are more self-confident. One result of the elections may be that many younger, business people come over to swell the population of Moscow-on-Thames (or Londongrad), as they call it. But I also think that by the end of Putin’s 6-year-term Russia may be a very different place. My hope is that it will find a ‘third way,’ an alternative to fear-based nationalism and greed-based western-style capitalism. I have always felt that Russia contains the potential for something different – which is probably why I keep writing about it. Russia may yet surprise us all. It has done so before and may well do so again.