The Russian President is popular, but the people will be demanding more than he has delivered so far, writes Chris Stephen, in Moscow
There was a moment, after Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, gave last Friday's annual state-of-the-nation address, when a TV station ran clips from previous speeches by both him and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. The contrast was stark: while the highlights showed Yeltsin visibly ageing year by year, the clips of Putin's four addresses showed no change at all.
In each, he appears hard, no-nonsense and brimming with confidence. Something else is unchanged since Putin (50) swept to power in 2000: his opinion polls remain in the stratosphere at 81 per cent support.
His popularity comes despite leading a country mired in trouble. Outside Moscow and St Petersburg, conditions are grim. One quarter of Russians live below the poverty line. A million children are officially homeless. AIDS, TB and alcoholism are rampant. Pensioners struggle on £20 a month.
And the war in Chechnya is nearly five years old, with last week's twin suicide bombings a reminder of the once mighty Red Army's inability to crush the rebels.
Yet Putin enjoys levels of support other presidents can only dream of. He is already being talked of as a shoo-in for re-election next March. The reason appears simple. Russians see him as he portrays himself, as a firm hand on the tiller.
Putin came to office at the end of the Yeltsin era which had become a byword for corruption and chaos. A population hugely disappointed with the fruits of democracy was happy to see someone from the security services - he was a careerist KGB officer - come in to take command.
Putin set about his dream - building a Strong Russia - from day one. First, champagne-swilling tycoons nicknamed Oligarchs by the rest of the country were brought into line. The strongest, Boris Berezovsky, was hounded out of the country and is now facing an extradition case in London.
Next the regional governors, a byword for graft, got the same treatment. So did Russia's most powerful company, Gazprom.
More controversially, the government silenced NTV, the most critical television station, causing an outcry among civil liberties groups. Meanwhile, Putin has shown a sure touch on the world stage. He was not afraid to clobber Tony Blair during the latter's trip to Russia last month to mend fences over the Iraq war.
And his opposition to the war was astute. He refused to kow-tow to American demands while ensuring that his opposition was less vocal than France, which is taking most of the post-war flak from Washington.
In all of this, Putin's personal style is a paradox. He has installed KGB men in key government posts, but there has been no police crackdown.
One explanation of the paradox came from the English-language Moscow journal, the Exile, which suggested that Putin was "neither an autocrat nor democrat, but a bureaucrat".
Certainly, the new Russia follows the priorities of an earnest administrator. Tidiness and stability are the watchwords. Daring initiatives are distrusted.
Putin has adorned his drive for Strong Russia with a grab-bag of symbols, drawn from both Russia's Soviet and Tsarist past. The old Soviet anthem has been restored, though with different words, while there is veneration for Russia's most successful Tsar, Peter the Great.
This contrast is clearest in the design of the new army flag, a Tsarist eagle superimposed on the old red flag. And he has added a popular stylistic flourish of his own: he combines the grandeur of office with personal modesty. Putin loves state occasions, but dresses in plain suits and avoids lavish parties. He makes few promises, insisting last week that any immediate gains will be "very modest".
Also, he has been lucky: the oil price is high, giving Russia a valuable economic cushion. And during his Presidency political parties have imploded, their leaders consumed with bickering and squabbling, leaving him with no obvious rival.
Putin's immediate future seems assured because his power rests on his being a bridge between two power blocs, the FSB and the business community, both of which support the stability he has brought.
But there are clouds on the horizon: his support, while broad, is not deep. Having arrived late in politics, Putin has no real power base, and his party, Unity, formed mostly from independents, has little grassroots support.
Meanwhile, his leadership style is also beginning to fray. He sometimes seems to run the Kremlin like the Queen of Hearts; issuing sudden instructions and admonitions on crisis issues, be it the homeless, the Chechnya war, or, last week, his anger at the state of public housing.
These commands trigger much scurrying around by officials, but little real action, and in a few weeks the issue is forgotten, with the crisis in question staying every bit as bad as before.
Then there is chechnya. this is very much putin's war. he launched it while still prime minister in 1999, but neither military nor political offensives have subdued the rebels. In a crisis Putin's instinct is to retreat: when the Kursk submarine blew herself up and sank in 2000, Putin remained on holiday. He kept a low profile again last year, when security services blundered after a Moscow theatre was seized by Chechen rebels. A rescue attempt using immobilising gas killed more hostages than terrorists, but the Kremlin stayed silent for days afterwards.
And while last week's state-of-the-nation speech was assured, it was short on detail. Putin called for the economy to double in the next seven years, but failed to explain how.
In all of this, his biggest problem may be a lack of imagination. Building a Strong Russia is fine as far as it goes, but it is unclear whether a lifetime's service in the KGB is suitable to deciding the direction of a modern economy.
If, as expected, Putin enters his second term next year, Russians will be expecting more. Plugging the holes of the ship of state is all very well, but that ship also needs some direction.