The travel agency Big Tour
on Tverskoy Boulevard in the centre of Moscow is selling
package holidays to well-to-do Russians. Between handing
out glossy booklets and answering calls about sunny resorts
in the Aegean, the employees talk politics.
Natasha, an energetic 29-year
old cashier at the tour company, will vote on Sunday for
Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party,
in Russia's presidential election. "I don't like any of
the candidates, but I decided to vote for Yavlinsky because
he is the only alternative to [Vladimir] Putin [the acting
president]. Putin never looks straight into people's eyes
and an honest man cannot hide his eyes. He may not be
a Stalin, but I think he is going to lead the country
in that direction." Natasha is one of the Moscow's fledgling
middle-class who can afford a holiday in Greece. Her view
is characteristic of many prosperous Muscovites who find
in the veteran of the Russian liberal movement an alternative
to the one-time KGB officer.
Nobody in Russia doubts that
Mr Putin will win the election and his popularity stretches
across different time zones and political classes. Maria
Volkenstein, the head of Validata, an independent think-tank
for public opinion studies, says that Mr Putin appeals
as much to the generation of 30-something businessmen
in Moscow as to elderly and impoverished Russians in the
Far East.
However, according to Liliya
Shevtsova, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, Mr
Yavlinsky's ratings have almost doubled in the past 10
days and could be between 7 and 10 per cent. Among internet
users he is ahead of Mr Putin.
Mr Yavlinsky has thus emerged
as a credible threat to Mr Putin's first round majority.
This has been met by a media offensive from Mr Putin's
supporters on Mr Yavlinsky and his party. The state-controlled
TV channel this week accused Mr Yavlinsky of several "crimes"
from having plastic surgery to taking money for his campaign
from the west, notably from George Soros, a US financier
blamed by many Russians for the financial crisis of two
years ago.
The effect on some middle-class
Moscovites was not what Mr Putin's campaign might have
hoped for. "I was not sure how to vote," says Leonid Borushnoi,
a computer technician. "But after I saw how the official
TV channel dished dirt on all other candidates I lost
any desire to vote for Putin. I will vote either for Yavlinsky
or against everyone."
In the past Mr Yavlinsky drew
his support mainly from the highly educated but low-paid
intelligentsia which lost much of its income and social
security from the liberal reforms of the 1990s. But for
the first time in more than a decade, his party seems
to be gaining the support of those who have benefited
from reform.
Aleskei Parfenenok, who owns
a medium-sized travel company, says the biggest argument
against Mr Putin is uncertainty. "We do not know what
he is going to do when he is in power. He talks about
bringing order, but I fear this could result in a serious
clampdown on private business."
Some observers believe opposition
to Mr Putin among young middle-class Russians is giving
momentum to the formation of a coalition of liberal democratic
forces previously scattered across several parties. "An
important result of the presidential elections could be
the creation of a sizeable party of the right which would
define Russia's future in the 21st century," says Mr Yavlinsky.
Andrei Piontkovsky, director
of the Centre of Strategic Studies, an independent think-tank
says: "In the past few days we have seen an overwhelming
swing of support among the middle class audience towards
Yavlinsky. For the first time, Yavlinsky built up his
campaign properly and managed to get a message across
that he is the only obstacle in the way of the totalitarian
regime."
Middle class or not, many
still feel Mr Putin has changed the way they feel about
Russia. "He is a strong man of strict convictions and
he is the only man who can lead the country out of crisis,"
says Angela, a 33-year-old single mother who works next-door
to Natasha. "He speaks foreign languages and I like the
way he talks to other nations." See Comment and Analysis
