Nobody would have remembered the third anniversary of Vladimir Putin's inauguration, if Marching Together had not woven a rug depicting him... Everyone learned of the existence of Marching Together two years ago when a crowd of adolescents in Vladimir Putin T-shirts gathered on Vasilyevskiy Spusk [at the edge of Red Square]. Since then they have marked inauguration day every year...

In St Petersburg Marching Together decided to present Putin with a rug they had woven themselves: They made it in Oriental style, depicting the President and his actions for the country's good.

It transpired that Russian politicians were not ready for such exploits to back the President, although almost all the deputies and expert we polled assess the three years satisfactorily.

"It is interesting," SPS [Union of Right-Wing Forces] leader Boris Nemtsov told Gazeta.ru. "Marching Together is funded entirely by the Kremlin and they give Putin presents with that money. There is no need to comment: Bootlickers and hypocrites have never been respected in our country. As for the third anniversary, early Putin, from 1999, did a lot for Russia's statehood: changes to the tax system, important progress in judicial reform. But today under Putin the reforms are being sabotaged. The sabotage of military reform was the height of idiocy.

"We do not support this stagnation and we believe that the President is now hostage to the secret services and the military bureaucracy.

"He has still not managed to draw on society's healthy forces. Maybe he lacks both the spirit and the will. But a high popularity rating does not do anything for the public: it is time for this to be converted into specific action. Only the warm breath of opposition can make the authorities work."

Deputies who support the President are also against giving Putin rugs. "Rugs take years to weave," Gennadiy Gudkov, member of the People's Deputy group, told Gazeta.ru. "If Marching Together are such experienced weavers, the rug should immediately be given to the Tretyakov Gallery, to the tapestry and carpet department.

"As for Putin's three years of rule, I consider them a success. First, the integrity of the state has been preserved. Second, a serious reform of legislation is in progress and there is evidence of growth on the domestic market and growth, admittedly slow growth, in the population's prosperity. On the negative side you have the president's imbalanced team. Some of his entourage compromise him."

"Three years after his inauguration the President remains hostage to the oligarchic system," Sergey Mitrokhin, one of the Yabloko leaders and seemingly the only person who is displeased with Putin, took up the theme. "He has done nothing for reform or the transition to a modern, competitive state in the world. But toadying to the President has increased markedly. I have observed this both in the President's apparatus and in society. I do not think three years of rule is a reason for gifts.

"The toadies will immediately start running off to weave rugs. If I was in Putin's position I would issue a statement refusing gifts. Incidentally, costly gifts like this are banned under the law on state service."

Putin's successes include preventing the disintegration and break-up of the state.

"I consider one of Putin's merits to be his reluctance to turn the country back," Viktor Pokhmelkin, co-chairman of Liberal Russia, said, speaking in favour of the president. "Despite temptation, he has rejected this idea. He does not adopt punitive measures, even though this was expected by some of the democratic public. His blunders include reproducing all the worst aspects of rule of his predecessor Yeltsin and his regime. This includes the continuing power of the bureaucracy and the influence of large-scale raw materials on the country's economy. Incidentally, our citizens' attitude to the President is similar to their attitude to God. Gifts, all kinds of rugs - this is not really right. The President should curtail these impulses."

"Unlike Marching Together, I would not give the president anything," Konstantin Kosachev, a member of the One Russia party, unexpectedly told Gazeta.ru. "I would give the three years of his presidency top marks. I would single out the reform of the party system as the President's strongest initiative. A multiparty system is taking shape, amendments to electoral legislation have been adopted and only political parties will take part in the elections, not one-day-wonder parties. This will encourage people to unite around initiatives rather than personalities."

Experts polled by Gazeta.ru responded very seriously to the question about Putin.

"Putin has managed to resolve the problem of consolidating the political elite both centrally and locally. Admittedly we are currently observing significant disagreements and clashes of elite groups within the government, but in principle what we are observing today is in no way comparable to

President Yeltsin's era, when the oligarchs controlled significant blocs in the government and the regional elites were practically autonomous," Dmitry Orlov, deputy director of the Centre for Political Technologies, said. "But, unfortunately, the elite is still the old elite and the bureaucracy has colossal traditions that date back many centuries."

"What we have now is significantly better than what could have been expected when Putin came to power," was the view of Nikolay Petrov, head of the Centre for Political and Geographical Studies. "Regarding today's favourable situation, that is not to the credit of either the government or Putin. It is attributable to the economic environment."

gazeta.ru, May 7, 2003