The contrast between ‘Putin's stability’ and the ‘turbulent 1990s’ has become one of the key narratives of Russian authoritarianism: the turbulence of the first post-Soviet decade is meant to serve as a backdrop for the economic successes and the image of social order and stability in the new era. At the opposite end of the political spectrum, memories of an era of contradictory reforms and the traumatic collapse of the previous system colour a sense of 'post-revolutionary' resentment...
