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The boom hasn't yet caused Russians to shake their legendary pessimism. Andrei Milekhin, who runs the country's biggest polling organization, Romir Monitoring, says his polls suggest that most people don't feel better off even though they are consuming more. Everyone grumbles about inflation, currently at about 12%. Apartment prices are soaring faster than in Shanghai or New York City. But for all its uncertainties, the Putin era seems less erratic than the tumultuous years of the previous decade, spanning the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the Yeltsin-era crisis in 1998, which wiped out most people's savings. "Putin's our Teflon President," says Milekhin, pointing to a chart that shows how even potentially damaging events like the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004 haven't dented Putin's popularity.
Indeed, growing numbers of ordinary Russians appear willing to trade some liberties for the economic opportunities that stability provides. Sergei Kuznetsov, 32, is one Russian in a hurry to live better. He used to sell sausage from a kiosk in Kaluga's open-air market, a tough business under any circumstances and particularly after the 1998 crisis, when the government temporarily suspended debt repayments and devalued the ruble 30%. But the economy recovered much faster than anyone expected. Together with his wife and a friend, Kuznetsov scraped and borrowed to buy a crude packaging machine and set up a business selling sunflower seeds and other products. He buys seeds in bulk from farmers in Rostov, 250 miles away, roasts them and then sells them in nearby towns. Today Kuznetsov Seed Co. has annual revenues of about $1 million. Kuznetsov drives a silver Renault Scenic SUV while his wife, who has stopped work to remodel their apartment, dodges potholes in her new lime green Daewoo. "You can never be optimistic about anything in our country because if you're optimistic, it will end badly," he says. But he credits Putin with instilling confidence in the market: "There is no alternative to him. Stability is important for business."
Those most optimistic about the future tend to be people too young to remember Soviet times and unburdened by any ideological aversion to capitalism. Valentina Zagrebelnaya, 25, is part of that generation. She treads carefully as she crosses Lenin Street so as not to get mud on her spike-heeled ankle boots. She runs the Kaluga branch of KMB bank, which specializes in giving small loans to entrepreneurs. She was 21 when she opened the bank branch, a graduate fresh from the local arts college, with no financial experience. No matter. Although there were few takers in the first couple of years, there were about 70 start-ups in Kaluga last year. The KMB Kaluga branch's loan portfolio has swelled over the past year from $600,000 to $2 million, and the number of clients has doubled. "A lot of people want to open shops," she says.