The demand for clean elections — a rerun of the parliamentary election and a fair presidential contest — are at the heart of the new "white" cause. The tens of thousands of protesters who have filled the parks and squares of Moscow in recent weeks are of all political views and none. They include Communists, liberals, nationalists and even some who would vote for Putin. What unites them is a demand to be taken seriously, for their votes to count.

The protests have holed the Putin regime below the waterline. The great edifice created during the past 12 years is not going to capsize soon. But the system, and particularly the image of the "First Person" (as Putin is colloquially known), has been fatally weakened. 

The central feature of the collapse is that Putin himself has come to look ridiculous. In the first years of his reign, the public was hungry for a public figure who looked vigorous and decisive. Retouched photographs of Putin's manly torso, displayed on the judo mat (his favourite sport), fishing or swimming, and his terse, punchy speaking style (enlivened with occasional bursts of gangster slang) were a refreshing contrast to the shambolic style of Boris Yeltsin — even, or especially, if they made foreigners shudder. Russians no longer found Yeltsin's drunken, unpunctual, grandfatherly style endearing. They wanted someone who mixed pizzazz with sober decision-making. 

This public hunger for a quasi-monarch masked Putin's shortcomings. He funked some big crises, such as the sinking of the Kursk submarine in 2001 and the botched rescue that followed. His reliance on ex-KGB pals (and their colossal enrichment) escaped censure too. After all, many Russians said, these were people who knew how to get things done. (Plenty of Westerners, especially in Germany, still echo that sentiment.) It also helped that oil and gas prices boomed. Had Yeltsin's governments enjoyed that windfall, Russians might remember his rule more kindly.