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”.

The dolls are a Russian folk tradition and a favourite tourist souvenir. Outgoing President Vladimir Putin has long had his own matryoshka. Now his protege does too, selling for 350 roubles ($15) at Izmailovsky market, a vast open-air maze of stalls that sells tourist trinkets.

My wife picked up a Medvedev matryoshka there this week. The stallholder said she ordered the dolls a week before the election. This might have been an audacious business gamble — if he had lost the vote, there would not be much demand for the dolls. In reality it was just sensible planning. The contest was so one-sided that Medvedev’s victory was never in doubt.

Inside Medevedev nestles a slightly smaller Putin, followed in descending order by Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin, last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader up to the early 1980s, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and Tsar Nicholas II. Inside him is a figure who might be Peter the Great, but he is so small it is hard to tell.

There is a big debate underway at the moment over who will really be in charge after Medvedev is sworn in on May 7 — the new president or the powerful Putin, who will become prime minister. If, in a dark moment, Medvedev is feeling frustrated that he is still in his mentor’s shadow, he could take comfort from looking at his matryoshka doll. There at least, he is bigger than Putin.

That is, until within the space of a week, the three main candidates discovered their mutual love for guns.

But that was just a shot in the dark after which the run-up to the election returned to its uneventful predictability.

President Vladimir Putin's chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev is expected to win the race for Russia's top job, in a campaign that critics say resembles a coronation rather than an election. Often described as the 'likely next president', Medvedev enjoys full Kremlin backing and blanket media coverage as he is criss-crossing the country to inch his ratings beyond the 70 percent he already has to his name.

Medvedev also dominates the picture wires. His campaign management has tight control over coverage, keeping him away from public scrutiny (he will not take part in TV debates) and presenting him at carefully stage-managed events that often have the charm of a Soviet leader's visit to a regional factory.

His personal photographer provides us with an incessant stream of images showing Medvedev visiting a maternity ward, speaking at an investment conference, inspecting a sheep farm, holding a child, meeting students, toasting officers, sitting by at state meetings and even conducting his own foreign trips to Serbia and Hungary - with the help of the state media Dmitry Medvedev's image is being molded into that of the national leader he is expected to become. Given our role as news gatherers, we cannot help but become to some extent an accomplice in this project.

We have to rely on these images because access for foreign  journalists is very restricted. With a few exceptions, one agency at a time is invited to tag along with Medvedev, forcing us to pool pictures, eliminating the competitive thrill that makes photographers tick. 

Medvedev's main challenger is Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov, though given the 10 percent he scored in a recent poll, he is no threat to Putin's man.

The life-long party functionary is known for greeting many of his longtime supporters as well as some veteran journalists by name. Traveling with him can produce the kind of candid pictures we would like to see of Medvedev.

Yet standing in the shadow of Medvedev's astronomic rating, Zyuganov's support rallies, attended mostly by pensioners, are a long shot from the election spectacles we know from other countries.

Maverick nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, number three in the race, also has a reputation for courting journalists, but in a more hands-on manner than the unruffled Zyuganov. Reuters Moscow correspondent Guy Faulconbridge had the pleasure to indulge with him last Sunday in Russia favourite tipple: (http://blogs.reuters.com/russia/2008/02  /26/vodka-and-guns-on-the-russian-elect ion-trail/)

The fourth candidate, Andrei Bogdanov, is the leader of the tiny Democratic Party and used to handle public relations for President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. He is expected to score below 1 percent and mentioned by reporters mostly for the sake of completeness.

In the face of all this blandness the challenge has been to keep the story alive but there is such diversity here that there are always fascinating human angles on the election campaign other than the candidates themselves in this vast and intriguing country:

Pictures taken by Sergei Karpukhin, Alexander Natruskin, Vasily Fedosenko, Denis Sinyakov, Ilya Naymushin, Shamil Zhumatov, Yuri Maltsev, Thomas Peter, Dmitry Astakhov/RIA Novosti and agency pool.

When Russian newspaper Express Gazeta announced a competition of children’s art entitled: ”How do you see the future president”, the entrants proved astute judges of Russian politics: they all submitted drawings of Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin-backed favourite.

Reuters Moscow correspondent James Kilner went along to an exhibition of the artwork to see how children saw life after the March 2 presidential election for Medvedev and outgoing President Vladimir Putin. 

The exhibition — tucked away in a scruffy hall in central Moscow — stars Medvedev as Russian president solving the world’s problems and Putin as a retired man-of-leisure relaxing on a river bank or walking his dog. ”All the entrants in the contest are confident of Dmitry Medvedev’s victory in the election,” the organisers said in a press release.

“Strong President — Strong Russia,” 16-year-old Yelena from Russia’s Far East wrote underneath her drawing of a topless Medvedev holding a kingly golden orb in his right hand and a heavy weight in his left hand.  Any dedicated fitness enthusiast would have been jealous of the body Yelena had drawn on Medvedev. His stomach muscles bulge around a thin waist and his biceps protrude from strong arms. 

There were no pictures of the other candidates in the election. Most of the dozens of Medvedev drawings showed him looking presidential wearing a dark suit, giving an order over the telephone and improving Russia — better housing, higher pensions, stronger soldiers.

Other pictures, though, had a different flavour. One shows Medvedev and his wife Svetlana celebrating new year. Only coffee cups clutter the table but Medvedev appears to be falling off his chair.

In another Medvedev lounges on a sofa with his arm draped around a blonde woman wearing an evening gown. His fingers brush the woman’s shoulder but he is exchanging glances with another woman sitting on his left. 

While the meaning of these two pictures is unclear, another black-and-white drawing by the exit is even more cryptic.  “Dmitry Medvedev in his free time sits at home and conducts scientific experiments,” the picture’s caption reads underneath a sketch of an expressionless Medvedev sitting in the dark and
mixing chemical test tubes. 

By contrast Putin strikes a far more relaxed tone in the drawings. Apparently with the pressures of work lifted from his shoulders Putin strolls through parks with his black Labrador Connie, practices judo or fishes.

In one picture a smiling Putin sits on a sun-drenched island. A Russian flag flutters in the background. On it is written: “Putin was here”.    

 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.

Reuters Moscow correspondent Guy Faulconbridge was among a group of journalists invited on Sunday to a shooting range with Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist firebrand who is running in the March 2 presidential election. Here are his reflections on what he saw and heard:

What better to blow away the election blues than a bit of shooting and vodka? And who better to liven up the atmosphere than Vladimir Zhirinovsky?

Especially when he is accompanied by his new party colleague Andrei Lugovoy, the former KGB agent suspected by Britain of murdering Russian emigre and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.

The venue is a shooting range outside Moscow owned by Lugovoy’s private security company. Zhirinovsky, dressed in full combat fatigues, inspects the weapons and picks a giant shotgun. Before shooting he tells the organisers to give the journalists some tranquilisers so they don’t get scared.

Three identical cardboard men — who he says are election opponents Andrei Bogdanov, Communist Leader Gennady Zyuganov and Kremlin-backed frontrunner Dmitry Medvedev - are the targets.

“Three bullets for Medvedev and all hits to the most dangerous places,” Zhirinovsky says as he inspects the silhouettes. “Just look at that - I hit Medvedev! Who else can do that?”

The 61-year-old launches into a tirade about Britain, saying London has always been the enemy of Russia. Lugovoy — who says he had nothing to do with the death of Litvinenko, a former spy — also shows off his shooting skills for the photographers. For the record, he is an excellent shot. Then we retire for vodka.

After half a litre with Zhirinovsky, we move onto his life: is he not tired of politics? “Tired?” he says with a sad glint in his eyes. “I live for this and the Russian people need me. I always wanted to be a politician. I have power, a little anyway, and people need me. The rest are Kremlin candidates. I alone am for the people.”

But people say you are approved by the Kremlin too? “Don’t talk rubbish - you English are always trying to cause trouble. People will vote for me and if the elections were fair I would win. Why don’t you write that?”

Mellowing, he downs the last vodka, smiles and tells me that not all the English are bad. “You have the Queen, we have Putin and Medvedev. But come with me on campaign and then we will really drink. Then you will see how the people want me as leader.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5soFcuSrz wQ

This video is an eloquent comment on the Russian presidential election. It is a parody of a televised debate, in this case featuring two of the candidates, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The spoof moderator says the debate is going out on air at 5:00 a.m. and when the camera cuts to the two debaters, they are both asleep. The moderator wakes them up, but when he asks them to talk about their policies they start reminiscing about 1996, the last time Russia had a hotly-contested presidential election. ”Yes, those were the days,” says the Zyuganov puppet. “And what do we have now?” With that, they get up and leave the studio.

The video is a bit of fun but in many ways it rings true.  This election really is short on excitement. Dmitry Medvedev, the first deputy prime minister President Vladimir Putin has anointed as his favoured successor, is overwhelming favourite to win on March 2. Opinion polls put Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky, his nearest rivals, nearly 50 percentage points behind him. Medvedev has declined to take part in televised debates, saying he could not fit them into his schedule of visits to the provinces. He has not been challenged in earnest on his manifesto. He has given no press conferences, only chats with groups of deferential provincial journalists. The only one-on-one interview he has given was paid for by his campaign.

So why is the election like this?  The Kremlin’s critics say it is because the campaign is slanted in Medvedev’s favour. They say he gets the lion’s share of air-time on national television, and Mikhail Kasyanov, the opposition candidate who could have injected some edge into the election — though he had no chance of winning — was disqualified.

But there is another factor at play that no one should lose sight of. Russians, it seems, want Dmitry Medvedev to be their next president. It’s not surprising really. Russia is enjoying the biggest economic boom in a generation. At weekends, the out-of-town hypermarkets that have sprung up under Putin’s rule are groaning with people buying washing machines, dishwashers and stereo systems. Rightly or wrongly, many Russians associate their growing disposable income with Putin. He has said he is prepared to stay on as prime minister if Medvedev is elected president. So people calculate that if they vote for Medvedev, the good times will keep rolling.

There is little doubt the election is one-sided. Western governments and election observers could well conclude it is unfair. But that does not necessarily mean the result will not reflect what Russian voters want.

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.”