Throughout his eight years of rule, Putin carefully shielded his private life from the public eye. While his wife Lyudmila had a low profile and his daughters were never reported on at all, the Kremlin leader’s black Labrador Connie became a true celebrity.

The friendly and tranquil dog often appeared in front of cameras during many of Putin’s meeting with international leaders. When Putin was discussing plans for Russia’s own  satellite global positioning system (GPS), he asked aides when he would be able to buy a collar for Connie with a built-in GPS tracker so he could keep an eye on the dog’s whereabouts.

On May 7, when Putin hands over to Medvedev the symbol of presidential power — a golden chain of the Order of St Andrew –  Medvedev’s cat Dorofei (Dorotheus in English) will take over the title of First Pet from Connie.

Ahead of that, the Russian media, discouraged from digging too deeply into Medvedev’s personal records, are focusing on Dorofei instead.

You can see here a Dorofei’s picture posted by Izvestia daily.

According to Trud daily, the four-year-old Dorofei belongs to a rare Neva Masquerade breed, revealing Medvedev’s love of St Petersburg – his and Putin’s home town on the Neva River.

Putin has brought many of his St Petersburg aquaintances to top government jobs in Moscow. St Petersburg friends form a considerable part of Medvedev’s entourage as well.

“One more guy from St Petersburg,” wrote Trud, referring to the cat.

In fact Medvedev’s wife Svetlana bought D0rofei in Moscow.

“When Svetlana came to pick up the kitten, she was not the first lady yet, just a simple and very nice woman,” Izvestia quoted the owner of a breeding company Great Hunter, Irina Ilminskaya, as saying. “She played a bit with the kittens and said they always kept cats in their home.”

The cat’s name was given by the breeder and is popular in Russian fairy tales.

According to the Russian media, Dorofei is a rather tough character — independent and unwilling to follow protocol. He is also a great fighter, keen to protect his territory and grow it at the expense of his neighbours.

One of such fights nearly ended in his death and left scars on Dorofei’s body.

“According to rumours Dorofei fought another VIP cat belonging to (former Soviet President) Mikhail Gorbachev,” said Trud adding that Gorbachev’s cat won.  Press reports said that following this fierce battle, Dorofei was castrated.

Izvestia said Dorofei’s half-brother Solomon was still for sale at the breeding company and offered its readers a chance to buy ”a close relative of the nation’s First Cat”.

 Medvedev, at least for now, wears several hats: he is a first deputy prime minister, the chairman of Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom and Kremlin-backed frontrunner in Sunday’s presidential election. That makes life tricky at times for the reporters covering his trips.

“Which of the three are we following today?” is a question pool reporters frequently address to their Kremlin handlers. Often there is no straighforward answer. What looks like a business visit can turn out to be a campaign trip and the other way round.

But when Medvedev visited Serbia and Hungary on Monday, less than a week before the polls he is certain to win, there was no doubt: we were covering a presidential visit.

To start with, Medvedev flew in an Ilyushin-96 jet with the word “Rossiya” (Russia) written along the fuselage. His mentor and outgoing President Vladimir Putin uses a similar aircraft. To add to the presidential feel of the occasion, he was joined by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a man who does not usually accompany lowly first deputy prime ministers.

 ”Add a wreath-laying ceremony to the programme and you will get a full official visit,” one pool reporter said.

The agenda of the trip was clearly designed to demonstrate that Putin’s preferred successor was a mature politician ready to act on his own and handle the most sensitive issues normally reserved for the Kremlin leader.

In Belgrade, Medvedev delivered  a message of Russia’s support for Serbia in their defiance of Kosovo’s self-declared independence.

He emerged smiling from talks with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. Dressed in blue suit and bright tie, he looked confident and spoke about future, with none of the references to Putin he frequently makes. His words and delivery left no doubt about who will be taking  the decisions.

In Belgrade, small crowds of people standing along the route of Medvedev’s convoy and near the venues of his visits applauded the  likely next Russian president. “Russia is good! Thank you, Dmitry!” some of them chanted.

His show of support for Serbia cannot fail to go down well with voters at home as well.  The vision of a Slav and Orthodox Christian country deliberately weakened by scheming Americans and Europeans is widespread among Russians, who project that scenario on to their own country’s relations with the West.

  In Hungary, Medvedev the hard-nosed negotiator was on display. After two hours of talks with Hungarian leaders, he emerged with an agreement that Budapest would join Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline.

This was a major coup: European Union member Hungary had been wavering between the South Stream project and the Nabucco pipeline, a rival scheme backed by the United States and the EU. South Stream is viewed by many in Russia as a proud symbol of their country’s new economic might and influence.

Before now Putin has led this sort of negotiation, with Medvedev playing second fiddle. Earlier this year for example, Putin took Medvedev to Bulgaria to sign a key document on construction of a Russian pipeline delivering Siberian gas under the Black Sea. But in Budapest, Medvedev was flying solo. His long apprenticeship is nearing its end.

Former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev won applause by famously banging his shoe on the U.N. rostrum in the 1960s. Boris Yeltsin had a reputation of a true “muzhik” (a Russian version of macho) after addressing crowds from a tank during a coup and conducting an orchestra while drunk when on a visit to Germany.  On the contrary, the softer and more intellectual Mikhail Gorbachev soon lost popular appeal at home.

President Vladimir Putin has been a classical example of a “muzhik”, or macho, leader and his love of everything military has served him well with voters.

Putin’s historic flight in a supersonic military jet to Chechnya in 2000 made him an icon among many Russians. Pictures of the president in pilot’s gear immediately became hot property, boosting the president’s popularity.  The flight was followed by a string of other exotic uniformed performances by Putin including an underwater journey on a nuclear-powered submarine and a flight on a strategic bomber.

Dmitry Medvedev, a refined former St Petersburg lawyer picked by Putin as a preferred successor, does not look very macho right now. The first deputy prime minister in charge of social projects feels more at home among professors and students elaborating on open-source software or the benefits of judicial reforms.

On Wednesday, Putin has given Medvedev a chance to show himself as a “muzhik”.

A joint trip by the two to Zhukovsky, an air base outside Moscow where most of the Soviet war planes have been tested in the past 70 years, offered a lot of opportunities for Medvedev to stage a show of machismo.

A line of  the latest military jets designed by Sukhoi and MiG with their cockpits open invited high-profile visitors to have a go. But Medvedev was visibly unexcited.

He calmly and impassionately followed Putin, whose eyes were flashing with excitement, and listened to explanations by engineers and pilots. Putin had to invite Medvedev several times to join conversations and ultimately encouraged him to take a second pilot’s seat in a Yakovlev training jet.

Perhaps, Medvedev knows a different secret of becoming popular in Russia. Or has Russia changed?

Many in the West assume that First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a former St Petersburg lawyer anointed by President Vladimir Putin as his preferred successor, is more liberal than his tough mentor.

Is this true ? It is hard to say because Medvedev’s campaign presents him as a man who is coming to the Kremlin to carry out Putin’s plans rather than as a leader in his own right. Medvedev’s public image is devoid of any personal touch which could reveal the true nature of Russia’s likely next leader.

But Westerners forget that liberals are not popular in Russia, a country fond of strong leaders. The tag “liberal” is mainly associated here with two detested politicians — the architect of the country’s painful post-Soviet free market reforms Yegor Gaidar and Sergei Kiryeyenko, who chaired the government in 1998 when a disastrous economic crisis erupted. So Medvedev is anxious not to look like a liberal, at least when campaigning inside his country.

In Khabarovsk,  he presented himself as a tough Soviet-style boss who believes in the power of the big stick.

Asked by journalists how to handle Russia’s traditional evil — corruption –Medvedev showed no mercy.

“Repression does not always work, but in such cases villains should indeed go to jail,” he said. “Only this can stop corruption. Economic incentives will not work.”

In another tough guy gesture, the normally shy Medvedev lambasted regional officials  in Khabarovsk, clearly copying Putin’s stern style.

“When two state-owned companies cannot agree among themselves, people suffer,”  he told officials from energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft who could not agree a deal on a gas pipeline  “Consider that you have received a stern order (to solve the problem) “.

Later, he rejected an official’s explanations for delays in building an oil pipeline, saying: “I give the minister three days to send me his report and explain why things are dragging on.”

The new tough style does not always come naturally to Medvedev.

When chatter among participants at a Khabarovsk meeting got too loud, he called them to order with a mild: “Attention, colleagues!” — far softer than Putin’s trademark phrase for such occasions: “I want you to listen to what I say !”

But on the evidence of the Khabarovsk meetings, Medvedev should persevere with the tough style because it goes down well.

“Dmitry Anatolyevich, we enjoyed today a tough conversation at today’s meetings,” one local reporter told Medvedev.

“Did you really like it?” Medvedev asked. “Yes!” came the enthusiastic answer.

But what happens next? Will the Putin-Medvedev tandem last and can the two work smoothly in a bizarre situation when the mentor is supposed to report to his pupil ? Or, as one ambassador here put it:  “Will Putin hang Medvedev’s picture on his office wall ?” There are no answers yet.

Dmitry Badovsky, deputy head of the privately-funded thinktank Institute for Social Systems, has given some clues, offering his view on what might happen after the election in an article published by the Vedomosti business daily: http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articl e.shtml?2008/02/12/141488

Badovsky sees it working like this: 
1. There will be a transitional period between the March 2 election and the inauguration of the new president planned for May 7-8. Nominations of officials and legislative acts in that time are likely to show whether Medvedev will redistribute power away from the presidency in favour of the prime minister. “It will become clear on what principles of power-sharing and with what people the administration of President Medvedev will be formed,” Badovsky writes.

2. “May Tablets”. Straight after his inauguration Medvedev will make his first state of the nation address. “This will show how closely Medvedev’s plans will coincide with Putin’s,” Badovsky says, referring to the political priorities spelled out by the president in a speech last Friday outlining Russia’s development to 2020.

3. International stage. According to Badovsky, a July summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations in Japan will show the emerging balance of power in the Kremlin. “One important question is whether Putin will go there, say as part of bilateral Russia-Japan consultations ?”

4. “Medvedev in October”. Six months after the inauguration will be a good time to see whether the new system works, Badovsky says. “It will become clear how the new government works and what economic realities it faces,” he comments. “The main thing to watch is the movement of Putin’s and Medvedev’s popularity ratings, which will start reflecting the new system, rather than the succession process.”

In a country where top officials normally never disagree in public on policy, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin’s remark at an investment conference was something of a bombshell.

Kudrin did not expand on his cautious remark. A fellow government liberal, state electricity chief Anatoly Chubais, went a bit further. He suggested that moves like a recent ban on regional offices of the British Council did not help to improve Russia’s image abroad.

But analysts were fast to link the words by Kudrin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin’s anointed successor Dmitry Medvedev, to the March 2 presidential election.
“There is no doubt there is a non-stop under-the-carpet struggle being waged in the Kremlin now with (hardliners) trying to attack the group associated with Dmitry Medvedev,” said Dmitry Oreshkin, head of independent think-tank Mercator. “Kudrin’s remarks are a clear message to the West that Medvedev needs protection.”

The conversation with my neighbour suddenly revived memories of the early days of Soviet Perestroika reform in 1985-86, when then Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev fought hardline rivals in the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo.
In public speeches, both sides worked hard to deny the existence of any split in the leadership and stressed their unity over the principles of Communism. But Russians, taught to read carefully between the lines, always tried to guess who was on top every day by reading newspaper editorials.
When front pages covered articles by liberal Central Committee member Alexander Yakovlev defending the virtues of “socialist pluralism” and “peaceful coexistence with the West”, the liberals rejoiced. When Politburo member Yegor Ligachev attacked “renegades” and urged uncompromising adherence to “party principles”, it was the day of the hardliners.

Twenty years on the secretive Soviet-style atmosphere is back ahead of Russia’s presidential succession.

Putin has said he sees the main point of the March 2 polls as ensuring a continuation of his course, which many Russians believe helped to revive the nation’s prosperity and self-confidence after the turmoil of the first post-Soviet decade.

Technically, there is no problem. According to the latest opinion polls, Medvedev’s popularity, helped by generous Kremlin support and ample airtime on state media, has rocketed to 70 percent, nearly 10 times more than his nearest rival.

The other big task - to preserve the image of unity in the Kremlin ranks - is more tricky.
Officially, there are no clans or political factions in Putin’s entourage.
“We are friends and allies,” Medvedev has said.
But the truth is hard to conceal. Recent events have shown that faction-fighting exists and Russians are learning again to read between the lines.

Medvedev’s anointing as Putin’s chosen successor against expectations that he would choose a tougher ally, First Deputy Prime Minister and former Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, was viewed as a defeat for the hawks’ camp. Their leading members have all but disappeared from public radars.

But did this mean a victory for liberals, with whom Medvedev is associated, or simply a manoeuvre to install a weaker leader who is easier for Putin to manage?

Almost anything which happens in Russia nowdays is carefully scrutinised for possible clues indicating what is going on inside the corridors of power. Kremlinologists, after a brief period of unemployment in the more open Yeltsin era, are now back in demand.

A few examples:

– the Pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi, which has revived memories of the Soviet-era Young Communists League, says it will stop running big campaigns. Since many of them were anti-Western and anti-liberal, Kremlin liberals score one point.
– Russia launches navy exercises in the Atlantic, unseen since the Soviet days, and resumes patrols by strategic bombers? Hardliners score.

–Information is leaked that Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, personally loyal to Putin, will become chairman of the board of gas giant Gazprom. The move, which will clearly reduce the influence of a future president Medvedev, is immediately interpreted as a confirmation of the theory that Putin wants a weak leader he can control.

“Watching all this is real fun,” our neighbour concluded our conversation. “But I would prefer more clarity from the top. I am not saying a right for us to decide, just more clarity.”

“They are taking such high bribes for selling agricultural products in their shops that domestic producers of milk and cheese find it pointless to sell,” he said on a campaign trip on Saturday to a farm outside his home town of St Petersburg. “As a result people, forced to drink powder milk, suffer.”

“We will take them to task,” Medvedev promised after visiting a farm near his and President Vladimir Putin’s home town of St Petersburg, on Saturday adding that the government will take prices under tough control.

Food prices, which have started growing especially fast last year, has turned into a major political factor ahead of March 2 polls. Official inflation hit nearly 12 percent in 2007, two percentage points higher than was initially planned, but anyone who goes to Russian shops was sure to notice that the real figure is much higher.

Worries about the growing cost of a food basket has topped in the latest opinion polls traditional favourites — the Russians’ concerns about security and jobs.

The food prices issue is not fatal for Medvedev, whose ratings soared to over 60 percent after popular President backed him as a preferred successor in December.

But it could sour his image of a successful manager, who has for over two years national priority projects launched to translate swelling budget revenues into better education, housing, health services and agriculture.

“Price rises are Medvedev’s main priority project,” said an official campaign slogan of the Communist Party, whose leader Gennady Zyuganov gears to stand against Medvedev in the presidential election. (http://kprf.ru/actions/54520.html  )

Since the Soviet times, the agricultural sector has been a black hole where state funds disappeared for decades without producing any visible effect. Things went even worse in the first post-Soviet decade, when the outdated Soviet-era agricultural sector collapsed completely.

The situation has considerably improved under Putin, when the state backed by strong revenues from oil and gas export managed to allocate funds for the agricultural sector.

As a part of the priority projects, the state has pumped over 152 billion roubles ($6 billion) in agriculture in 2006-07 as credits for domestic producers.

“We have managed to achieve some progress in the past two years,” Medvedev said during a meeting with regional officials.

But the soaring prices, which force the majority of Russians to tighten their belts, sours the rosy picture.

The potential effect of growing food prices may be even stronger now that Medvedev has clearly focused his election campaign on promises to make Russia’s future course more oriented towards ensuring the people’s well-being.

He has already promised to review the system of pension to end the current situation when old people are left with less than $100 a month after retirement and improve the environment protection.