"Democratically elected" ? Don't speak about you don't know... It's easy to be elected this way when all medias are under control and when there is no opposition. My girlfriend is russian, I've been in Russia many times and I know this country very well, even better that some russians who live there but don't understand what's going around...
One more thing about elections, I had a very interesting talk with my girlfriend's mother, she's working for the administration. Do you know the day of the election, her boss called every single person in her office to tell them to vote for Medvedev ? Democratically , da ? But it's strange to see they think this situation is "normal" and that they can't do anything about it... Russian people should wake up someday. In the meanwhile it's true that Poutine did good job for the economy, but from where Russia was a few years ago, and with such huge potential, any clever guy would have do the same !
And there is still a lot of to do, there are a lot of poor people (my girlfried earns 550 euros in Moscow, her parents 300 in Tver, while Moscow is the city in the world where are the most millionnaires), infrastructure are very bad, ex KGB (FSB) and mafia holds key points economy, and society is widely corrupted (for exemple on the subway you may to buy any diplomas, girlfriend's collegue bought a very good one for 3000 euros :). It will for sure improve in next year, but it needs people such as Kasparov telling what really's going on.
Ah I forgot... do you think you will see a flying penis at a Poutin's meeting ? I don't think so, unless a the guy want to spend the next ten years in Siberia....

Oh, come on.. Putin and his NASHI "army" is nothing but a dangerous nationalist movement. I agree that the U.S. is not example of liberty for the world anymore but you cannot honestly say that Putin has been good for democracy, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press in Russia. Nice attempt at an anti-jewish remark. I am no fan of Israel at all, but you can assume nothing just because of someone's last name.