NIZHNEVARTOVSK, Russia – If you want to learn anything about the new Russian democracy, you have to travel to Moscow and talk to the relevant people. There you will learn what seems obvious at first glance: that whatever form democracy takes in the former Soviet Union, it is not likely to bear much resemblance to ours, or to democracy in France, Canada or India.

The burden of Russian history is considerable: Centuries of absolutist rule under the czars, fitful engagement with the West, isolation from Europe, multiple nationalities, three-quarters of a century of communist abuse, the murder of tens of millions of Soviet citizens, the corruption of the fabric of Russian national life. Russians, even impoverished pensioners, have little interest in returning to the brutal certainties of the Soviet Union. But predicting the future of Russian democracy is hazardous.

One thing is certain: Whatever it is that Russians look for in a leader, they seem to have found it in Vladimir Putin. The onetime KGB colonel is exactly the sort of smart, decisive, even ruthless organization man who appears willing to do what is necessary to achieve what needs to be done. Whether dealing with a sclerotic bureaucracy, slippery foreign diplomats or intransigent Chechen nationalists, Putin moves with smooth self-assurance and cold efficiency.

Of course, this puts him in contrast to his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin; but is this a matter of perception or reality? Whether Putin is actually accomplishing much, in the long run, is difficult to say; still, the illusion of control, even progress, is indelible. I wouldn’t call it a cult of personality, but his portrait is ubiquitous: Whether framed on the walls of restaurants and offices, or for sale in kiosks and souvenir stands, his penetrating gaze is vaguely disconcerting. There is a lively and (by American standards) unruly political opposition in Russia, but thus far, no challenger to Putin’s personal leadership.

Yet to measure the extent to which Putin rules over Russia, or presides in Moscow, it is useful to come out here to the Siberian plain, where a grim, concrete Brezhnev-era city of a quarter-million people emerged in the mid-1960s to service the nearby Tyumen oil fields.

Except for the Orthodox cathedral that was swiftly put up in the past few years, there is very little to suggest the post-Soviet epoch. Nizhnevartovsk’s avenues are broad and pitted with potholes and ruts; its buildings are uniform Stalinist blocks. The occasional beech tree – a survivor of the primeval taiga – stands forlorn among the acres of apartments and civic plazas. Even the place names seem unreconstructed: The visitor is shown the local Palace of the Arts, the stately Avenue for the Friendship of Nations, the Memorial for International Veterans, and Lenin Street.

In the midst of all these people’s monuments, however, humanity endures: There is a huge, technologically sophisticated theater with a resident company and repertoire of avant-garde productions. A citywide system of children’s libraries – rambling, well stocked, clean and wired for the Internet – puts its American equivalents to shame.

In many ways, it is as if the news of the U.S.S.R.’s demise had just arrived. The theater and ambitious local government would never have prevailed under the former system, but the burden of history and habit still weighs heavily. In that sense, Nizhnevartovsk stands as a kind of metaphor for the post-Soviet system. It is one thing to issue decrees from Moscow, but the sheer size of the giant Russian Federation guarantees that the message does not always penetrate in timely fashion.

In that sense, this oil city is not just a monument to the old command-and-control economy; it is a laboratory of Russia’s new democracy. For when the oil fields are exhausted, in another generation or so, will Nizhnevartovsk disappear as quickly as it was built, or will self-rule and a market economy sustain an artificial community that seeks to survive?

The answer is by no means clear. The signals flashed from Moscow are clearly contradictory. Russia has embraced a form of laissez-faire capitalism unseen in the United States since the 19th century, the government is solvent, and the capital markets are flush. But the same could be said for the People’s Republic of China. Russia’s executive is, ostensibly, responsive to its legislature, and its judicial system is politically independent. But Moscow judges willing to defy the Kremlin do not, by themselves, guarantee the rule of law throughout the country, and the powers of the presidency are growing, not shrinking.

Russian democracy is very much a work in progress in Moscow. And out here in the provinces it is something like the weather: a wind that sweeps across the plain now and then, which may or may not blow out the windows on Lenin Street.

Philip Terzian is the associate editor of the Providence Journal.

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