Granted, Putin has been working hard all these years. No, not like a "galley slave". But, for example, on the the mysterious Olympia yacht, allegedly presented by Roman Abramovich. So now Putin and his entourage are protecting not an abstract power, but a way of life that is unparalleled anywhere else in the world.

It is not easy to diagnose the current situation. Can we now say that a political crisis has been triggered by the appearance of the people known on the web as i-Decembrists? No, because the question of power is not at stake yet. Is it a social crisis? No. In effect what we are witnessing is a crisis of expectations. In terms of the new political economy, it is a crisis of the social contract...