MOSCOW – There's a unique blend of resilience and fatalism in the Russian DNA that has served the country's people well in traumatic times, and the days following Monday's double suicide bombings in Moscow's Metro were no different.

So when I took a long walk through central Moscow's underground tunnels – including the Lubyanka metro station, near the headquarters for Russia's security services and one of the two sites targeted by the bombers – I shouldn't have been surprised to see so much life getting back to normal, barely 48 hours after shrapnel-filled explosives had ripped through the subway, killing at least 39 people.

SLIDESHOW: Moscow mourns after deadly subway blasts

A makeshift memorial of candles and flowers filled one walkway. But so did an array of dozens of quaint boutiques, lining both sides of the pedestrian tunnels – selling cheap make-up, made-in-China DVD's, iPod accessories and Russian Baltic beer – all open for business.

Metro platforms and trains bulged with commuters trudging on with their daily lives despite worrying about when and where the next attack would come.

Yelena, a Muscovite who wouldn't give her last name, said she had heard that both female bombers set off their suicide vests from inside their trains, just as the doors opened and passengers filed in. "Once we were in the moving subway car, and got to the next station and pulled up and stopped at the platform, I got really scared," she said.

Another resident, who called himself Dima and also refused to give his family name, said that everyone he knew was frightened to death, but had no choice other than to take the subway. "People have to work. This is the only way to get there. And – in this recession – if you don't work, you don't eat and someone else will take your job, too," he said.

Above ground, security forces covered the capital. I counted at least 25 plainclothes police – mostly talking to each other on hidden radios – along just one city block, between a 5-star hotel and a train station.

Gaggles of guards – with darting eyes – flocked around each entrance to every shopping center I passed. In the streets, police and military vehicles raced through and around traffic, their sirens blasting, as they chased down the latest report of a suspicious object or bomb scare – all of them false alarms, but further straining already frayed nerves. One potential bomb, according to a Facebook entry, turned out to be a bottle of human urine, with several wires attached, planted on a Moscow university campus – a morbid practical joke.

Many counter-terrorism experts say that such blanket security will not be enough to thwart trained and determined suicide bombers, especially females who, in many cases, have been hand-picked to avenge the killing of their rebel husbands or loved ones at the hands of Russia's security agents – a force that's come to be known as the "Black Widows."

In fact, one of the Moscow subway suicide bombers was the 17-year-old widow of a slain Islamist rebel from the North Caucasus, a leading Russian newspaper reported on Friday. 

"Once they have that backpack, they're gonna be able to get on a bus or a train and detonate it," said NBC News security analyst Michael Sheehan. "So your focus has to be [on] intercepting this cell before they pack the bomb and start to walk toward a subway station. By that time it's very difficult to stop." 

VIDEO: Harsh warning as Russian metro reopens

Political backlash
This city's residents have been knocked off balance because of the fact that so many Russians believed the war against Islamic militants in the distant region of the North Caucasus was done and dusted. Or at the very least, was a conflict that would never return to the nation's capital.

President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minster Vladimir Putin have both talked tough about pulling "terrorists from the sewers" and "destroying the beasts," but most Muscovites thought that had already happened years ago.

Interestingly – there's been a palpable backlash. Even in normally pro-Kremlin newspapers, brazen editorialists have dared criticize – many for the first time – the government's heavy-handed security crackdown in Chechnya and other Caucasus states, claiming that shortsighted policy has only managed to recruit more Chechen militants, and bring al-Qaida into the region as well.

The Russian blogosphere has also been replete with irate comments from Russian viewers who had tuned into (Kremlin-controlled) TV stations in the immediate aftermath of Monday's attacks, only to find the usual, anodyne fare of sitcoms and variety shows, instead of any real breaking news.

To a large extent, Putin's steely reputation – and meteoric political rise – were built on his ability to bottle up the Islamist insurgency and often gruesome bloodshed just inside Russia's southern border. But a growing number of critics are now warning that further militant strikes in Moscow could just as quickly undo that career, and that of Putin's protégée, Medvedev.

The man who has claimed responsibility for Monday's bombings certainly thinks so. Doku Umarov, a Chechen rebel commander and self-proclaimed "Emir of the Caucasus Emirate," has warned of just that: more Moscow attacks. Writing on an insurgent Web site, he boasted of at least 20 more suicide bombers who are trained, deployed and ready to strike "in the cities" before Easter.

If that happens, Russians could soon find themselves – once again – caught in the crosshairs, sending their sons and husbands off to another war in Chechnya. And that's probably the only nightmare that Muscovites fear more right now than going into their own subway.

Jim Maceda is an NBC news correspondent based in London, who has extensively covered Russia and the Caucasus, and was currently on assignment in Moscow.

 MOSCOW – Like on any other Thursday, I was looking forward to my weekly Texas Hold 'Em poker game. A laid-back, low-stakes game with some friends in the back room of a Moscow restaurant is always a nice way to unwind towards the end of the work week.

But this week, our game was cancelled due to new Russian legislation which removed poker's classification as a sport, effectively banning any poker playing for money.

"We are trying to get some clarification from the police as to how they see friendly games," said the restaurant manager who allows us to play in his restaurant for nothing more than the price of the drinks and food. He explained the reason for canceling this week's game: "We wanted to clear it first, and we also wanted to stay out of trouble for a while." Fearing authorities, he prefers to remain anonymous.

The Russian government shut down casinos in most of country earlier this month, exiling them to four gaming zones that don't yet have the infrastructure to support casinos. At first, it looked like poker would survive the shutdown due to its designation as a sport (and not a game of chance). Now, players are wondering how far-reaching the new decree will push authorities to crack down on various kinds of poker games.

It seems clear that the law is intended to break up any poker clubs who get a percentage of the winnings from the games (a "rake") in return for providing the tables, dealers, chip, and the place to play. But friendly-game players are worried as well, especially considering Russia's lack of a clearly defined legal system and widespread corruption.

"The law still seems to be a little gray," said an expatriate resident of Moscow whom I play with (he also asked that his name not be used). "If you play in a public place but there's no money on the table, is that considered an illegal poker game? I don't think it is. But what happens when the cop comes in, sees you playing poker? He could try to shake you down."

Others players are not as worried.

"I don't think it's going to stop the friendly games … their target is the underground poker clubs," said Nathan Stowell, a 37-year-old metals trader from the United States who has been living in Moscow for 15 years. "People are still going to play, [but] it will be a lot less safe. It's going to be more criminal and obviously going to discourage more people from playing."

This discouragement couldn't come at a worse time for Russian poker aficionados. Poker has exploded in popularity in Russia in the past decade and Moscow was set to host its first European Poker Tour tournament in August – its fate is now unclear.

"We are in mourning," wrote Dmitry Lesnoi, head of the Russian Sport Poker Federation, on the federation's Web site. "We lost. But we fought until the last card was laid down on the table."

Most players I know say they hope the law won't apply to friendly games, as giving up poker isn't an option for some of them.

"It doesn't mean we're going to stop playing. We're just going to have to play in different locations," my expatriate friend said. "The biggest deal is just inconvenience. It means I have to try that much harder to have a place to play."

MOSCOW – So who is really in charge in Russia? Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or his boss on paper, President Dmitri Medvedev?

A foreign Russia-watcher offered the best answer I've heard.

"When we negotiate with Russia we deal with a leadership," said E. Wayne Merry, a former U.S. State and Defense Department official and a senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council. ''The senior person in that leadership is Putin. The second person in that leadership is Medvedev.''

There you have it. Or do you?

VIDEO: Putin: Prime Minister or puppet-master?

If Medvedev is the official leader while Putin acts as paramount leader, that would explain why, after summiting with Medvedev for hours on an array of important initiatives, President Barack Obama still felt the need to get Putin's blessing over a power breakfast Tuesday morning.  Otherwise, Obama risked finding out that the United States had made commitments to a front man, not the main man.

Russian insiders like Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of "Russia in Global Affairs," say it's almost silly to think that Putin is not the center of power in Russia, even if he's moved out of the Kremlin and into the "White House," a couple of miles down the Moscow River.

"Putin has the authority and enough power to, so to say, destroy any things or intentions if he believes that Medvedev is going in the wrong direction," said Lukyanov.

But does that make Putin a kind of regent or a power behind the "throne" who pulls the levers or puppet-strings, even as officially recognizing his hand-picked successor's constitutional rights?

Or is Putin just indulging Medvedev to negotiate a ceasefire in Georgia last summer (analysts say there's no doubt Putin ordered the invasion), or discuss a new strategic arms reduction treaty with the U.S. president?

Interestingly, very few – if any – Russian analysts buy into the idea that Medevdev is Putin's puppet.

"It's much more complicated than that," said Lukyanov. "I think they respect each other much more than this simple relationship would mean."

VIDEO: Obama discusses U.S. relations with Russia

It does appear at times that Medvedev, now well into the second year of a four-year term as president, is beginning to strike out on his own.

In recent weeks he's met with liberal leaders of Russian non-governmental organizations – a group of people that Putin never had time for – and called for a loosening of restrictions placed, by Putin, on the pro-democratic organizations.

More recently, Medvedev went even further, overturning the closure of a strategic U.S. airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, reportedly originally orchestrated by Putin, which would allow the U.S. to retain a key means of transporting men and materiel into the fight in Afghanistan.  These moves are hardly the actions of a puppet.

At the same time, Putin took Medvedev's cabinet (almost all of them Putin appointees) by surprise when he decided Russia had had enough of trying unsuccessfully to gain membership into the World Trade Organization. Putin said that Russia would pull out of unilateral membership talks and would seek a joint WTO bid with Belarus and Kazakhstan. 

But on Tuesday, Medvedev reversed course during a press conference with Obama.

"We do plan to join the World Trade Organization and will do this taking into account the achievements that have been made...The format could change, there could be the need for some other agreements," Medvedev said.

So there was clearly a difference of opinion on that issue.

Still, Putin clearly moves with his political future in mind.

"Definitely the performance of Vladimir Putin as Russia's prime minister in a time of economic crisis enables him to secure the right to make a spectacular comeback in the year 2012," said Sergei Strokan, a veteran Putin-watcher and investigative reporter.

So, on the question of whether Medvedev is a puppet or an independent president, Strokan says the jury is out.

"Remember, this is only Medvedev's first term, and he knows he's there only because of Putin," said Strokan. "But if he runs for a second term, and many of us think he will, that's when we could see the real President Medvedev emerge.''

But even professionals like Strokan who spend much of their time dissecting the Russian tandem aren't really sure who is in control. I asked Strokan during an interview with TV cameras rolling, "So, who is in charge here?" Strokan, a man who normally speaks at rapid fire speed suddenly took a long pause and stared at me. Then he paused some more. And finally, as if conceding defeat, he shook his head and said, "It's difficult to say, difficult to say.''

Still, would a Medvedev-run Russia be any different than Putin's Russia? Certainly President Obama seems to think – or hope – that to be the case, throwing superlatives in the direction of the Russian president at every chance during their joint press conference on Monday.

Of course, even Obama slipped up by referring to Putin as "President Putin" during a press conference, as well as during an interview with NBC News Chuck Todd, before quickly correcting himself. Obama told Todd, "I don't think it's Freudian. He used to be president."

When asked by a reporter who he thought was in charge, Obama deftly skirted the issue, saying, in effect, that the constitution says Medvedev is president (a position that is supposed to handle foreign affairs), and Putin is prime minister (a position that concentrates on domestic issues). In reality, though, their roles are often reversed. Such confusion leads to slips-of-tongue, back-up power breakfasts, and the like.

Luckily, there's at least one place in Moscow where the center of power is obvious. In a far corner on the second floor of Moscow's version of Barnes & Noble, Dom Kinigi, photo portraits of current Russian leaders, the kind you would see hanging on the walls of any city hall, are there for all to see.

They are in a sense the final arbiters of power. I climbed the stairs and sure enough, there was a portrait of a Medvedev, smiling and wearing a fashionable blue tie with that cumbersome knot.

And hanging next to him is Putin, brooding, glassy-eyed and towering over Medvedev, his portrait twice as large as his protégés'.

The pictures say it all.

 MOSCOW – When I first heard about the International Medical Leech Center from a colleague, my reaction was probably a typical one for an American: Yuck. Gross.

A breeding center for 150,000 leeches in a small village just outside Moscow did not sound like my ideal location for a story. But when I heard the center's claims that they raise and sell 10 times the number of leeches than the rest of the world combined, curiosity overcame my initial disgust.

Natasha Lepyoshkina is one of the 29 leech breeders at the center, all of whom are women. According to her, the gender choice is no accident. "You need to have patience with the leeches. You have to be industrious and patient. A man couldn't do that," she said. 

VIDEO: Medicinal leeches, fresh blood for Russia's economy

Most of the breeders live in the local village and take shifts on weekends to check on the leeches, lending the center a family-like atmosphere. "They won't ever bite us – they know us too well," said one breeder as I prepared to dunk my hand in a jar full of hungry leeches. (Maybe it was leech breeders who coined the phrase about biting the hand that feeds you?)

The breeders often referred to the leeches as their children. "Just like a child – we raise them and love them, and once they grow up they leave us," said Lepyoshkina, as she prepared a batch of 1,000 live leeches to be shipped from the center. 

A holistic medical treatment
While 10 percent of the leeches are shipped abroad, the vast majority are used within Russian, where hirudotherapy (medicinal treatment involving leeches) never fell out of style the way it has in many Western countries. Leeches were widely used to remove blood from medical patients in medieval Europe, but the practice became less prevalent in the West during the 19 century.

Still, for its proponents in Russia, hirudotherapy is seen as the ultimate holistic treatment.

"Hirudotherapy has a multiple effect," said Dr. Irina Pankova, a hirudotherapist in Moscow's leading clinic. "It battles specific illnesses while also strengthening the immune system … it improves your mood and normalizes your psycho-emotional state."

The leeches are placed on the specific areas of the body during the therapy that patients say is a quick, clean and relatively painless process.

Viktoriya Kazantseva, a patient who allowed us to film her during a recent treatment, visits Pankova's Moscow clinic for lower-back pain therapy twice a year. Each treatment of 10 hirudotherapy sessions (two a week for five weeks) costs about $650.

It is much more than just relief for her aching back, though. "What I get from the leeches, nothing else can give me," she explained as she lay on her stomach and several leeches worked on her back. "It's not just about the illness. It works on your whole organism."

More and more Russians are thinking like Kazantseva, which explains the center's success. Last year alone, the center bred and sold 3.2 million leeches for a profit of about $2 million. And despite the Russian economy suffering due to the worldwide financial crisis, Pankova said that this year her clinic has actually seen a rise in people seeking hirudotherapy.

Leeches have also regained a bit of popularity in Western medicine, mostly being used in reconstructive surgery. Leeches secrete an anticoagulant before they begin to suck, which doctors use to stimulate circulation and relieve blood congestion.

But that specific use is still a far cry from being able to buy leeches in a pharmacy, which I couldn't resist doing in Moscow after having my eyes opened to the world of hirudotherapy.

Now the three newest members of our NBC Moscow team – Bloody, Mary and Vampire's Angel – swim in a jar on my desk, wondering which one of our crew will be next to offer ourselves up as their lunch.

 MOSCOW – At the Russian Orthodox Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in central Moscow, attendance has almost doubled in the past year alone. At most churches, this would be a blessing.

But for this church, the spike in attendees is not attributed to successful preaching or newfound faith. Instead, it's due to the soup kitchen that serves up free meals four times a week in the midst of the ongoing financial crisis.

"Last year our biggest meals would have around 300 people," said Boris Kleparsky, a volunteer who led prayers before serving soup, potatoes and sausages to rows of people sitting at long tables running the length of the church. "But this winter we were already routinely getting over 500 people a meal. And it's all because of the crisis."

Oxana Onipko / AFP - Getty Images

Unemployed Russians read classifieds while waiting in line at a job fair in Moscow on March 18, 2009.

Kleparksy and other volunteers say the majority of the new faces they are seeing at the soup kitchen are not the customary pensioners or homeless clients, but newly unemployed who can't make ends meet in an expensive city like Moscow.

"They came here from all over Russia, even Ukraine and Kazakhstan looking for work, and now those jobs have dried up," said Kleparsky.

Yura Petrushan was one of those people suddenly looking for work. The 25-year-old construction worker waited in line for the second shift at the soup kitchen, a place he started coming to a few weeks ago.

"I used to be able to buy bread or cook some macaroni at my apartment when I had work," said Petrushan, who also supports his wife and four-year-old daughter who live 125 miles outside Moscow. "Since the crisis hit, I rarely get paid. I'm hired for a job, but then the bosses disappear with the money after the job is done," he lamented. "But now there aren't even jobs anymore."

Petrushan is one of the estimated 7.5 million unemployed Russians, already 1.5 million more than the government had predicted for 2009. And those numbers don't include people who have been put on forced furloughs or shortened work weeks.

Kremlin addressing the crisis 'openly'
The Kremlin is trying to reassure the public that the government is strong enough to help the country weather the economic storm.

"We have sufficient reserves in the budget to deal with most important issues, in particular unemployment and support to families," said Arkady Dvorkovich, economic advisor to President Medvedev.

VIDEO: Kremlin says it's tackling the financial crisis

Even as other indicators such as GDP loss and the drop in industrial output are larger than the government's forecast, Dvorkovich stressed that the decline was slowing down – a possible sign that the worst has already passed.

He also emphasized that the government makes its economic decisions "as openly as possible" and welcomes input from outside the government.

But sometimes it is hard to reconcile the government's claims of openness with its actions.

Fewer statistics released
Last fall, as the crisis began to take its toll, the St. Petersburg Times claimed that the Kremlin was instructing television channels to soften their tone when reporting financial news and avoid using words like "financial crisis" or "collapse."

And last month the Kommersant, a business daily, reported that Russia's Federal State Statistic Service had stopped releasing monthly unemployment statistics and would only publish the numbers quarterly. Some Russian analysts say the move allows the government to avoid a continuous flow of negative news.

Media reports and statistics don't make a difference, though, to the hundreds of new clients arriving at the church's soup kitchen.

"I hope someone is working to make things better for us," said Yura Ivanov, a 50-year-old builder who came with Petrushan. "But I don't know – I have my doubts."

 ELEKTROSTAL, Russia – Electric Steel – "Elektrostal" in Russian – is the epitome of a "one-company town" whose citizens traditionally either worked at, or depended on, the heavy machine factory that bears the town's name.

About an hour's drive from Moscow, Electric Steel became, starting in the 1930's, a symbol of Soviet strength and economic security. Entering this Stalin-era town, one can't escape Electric Steel's insignia – a striking red and yellow icon of a Roman blacksmith pounding a steel slab against a black anvil, setting off electric sparks – which adorns just about every workplace, store and street light.

VIDEO: From boom to bust in Russian steel townÂ

The town has grown over the years – about 150,000 now live in pastel-painted houses along avenues with names like "Soviet," "Karl Marx" and "Lenin." A large statue of Lenin – frozen in a speech-giving pose – stands in the middle of the main square, next to a hockey rink. 

We traveled to Electric Steel to see how the deepening economic crisis was affecting this so-called "mono-town," one of hundreds of industrial projects the old Soviet leadership spread across the nation.

No official welcome mat
It didn't take long to find out that we were not invited, at least not by officials, who were protective of their town's image and suspicious of an American TV news team's ulterior motives.

We were allowed to tape in the streets, but could not enter the main factory plant and talk to workers. Nor could we go inside the local unemployment office, which recently has seen hundreds of laid-off workers looking for jobs each week.

Desperate for information, we visited with our Russian colleagues at Electric Steel's paper, "News of the Week." The deputy director politely told us he was on deadline and couldn't help. His boss later relayed a sterner phone message: "We will categorically have nothing to do with you."

The reaction was understandable. People here were reeling as much from shock as from belt-tightening. Electric Steel, like its ubiquitous Roman forger, was supposed to be stronger than any crisis.

This was the place that once mass-produced the Soviet Army's artillery shells, the ones that defeated Hitler during World War II. That pounded steel into fuel rods for Russia's nuclear power plants. Here, at the first sign of cutbacks, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pumped millions of dollars of subsidies into Electric Steel's four plants, because this town could not be allowed to fail.

"The goods that Electric Steel makes are too important to the country," explained Maxim Popov, the town's only official voice of opposition, from inside a one-room Communist-era apartment – which was appropriate because Popov is also the local head of the Communist Party. "So Electric Steel's collapse won't be explosive. It will be a slow dying process."

'I have no hope at all'
Electric Steel's human stress doesn't scream out at you. It's more like a pall that's darkened the pastel houses, and quieted the main plant's smokestacks.

It was hard to tell if the tears welling in Yuri Maslov's eyes were from the biting cold or his predicament. Maslov, 55, had worked for three decades, most recently in the fuel rods plant. But with inflation now in double figures, he can't support his family on his $140 a month pension.

I met him outside the unemployment office, where he'd been looking unsuccessfully for a job since January. "There's nothing worthwhile in there," he said. "I'm a specialized technician. All they have to offer are low-paying jobs as night watchmen or freight loaders. I'm not there yet."

Galina Moisienko, also 50-something, was unemployed and living poorly on $30 a month of state benefits. She was looking for work after 29 years at the plant. A tear rolled down her cheek. It was minus 15 degrees Celsius. "There's nothing here for women. If they do have something it's for a cleaner at $120 a month. Is that money?"

But she sounded like she was resigned to taking that job soon. I asked her if she thought the crisis would last long. "I have no hope at all," she said. "I've never seen it this bad here.''

'It's much worse elsewhere'
Igor Matvaev was a bit more optimistic. A 38-year-old construction worker, he was ordered to stay at home without pay by his company – a common technique by employers to avoid unemployment benefits – and then laid off once the company's credit ran out. But he still thinks Electric Steel isn't as bad off as elsewhere. "The factory is still functioning, but the five-day week is down to four now. And salaries have been cut as well."

Matvaev can't find work, but thinks he'll get by with help from friends. His girlfriend still has a job. He shook with cold during our conversation. He had no scarf or gloves to protect against the bitter wind. Embarrassed, I realized that he probably couldn't afford gloves and a scarf. "It's not so bad yet here. It's much worse elsewhere," he said, through chattering teeth.

He was right. Electric Steel had it better than most Russian towns, which in the course of just two years have gone from boom to bust, as the price of oil plummeted from $140 a barrel to below $40. Thanks largely to government subsides, and a general will to save this "model" town, the pain felt here was still bearable.

But even here, there was fear of social unrest. When I asked Maslov what would happen if people don't find work, he replied, "Well, they won't come into the streets yet. But, when it gets really bad, maybe then."

Protests on the rise
Matvaev has cause to worry. Anti-Kremlin protests, which were unheard of in Russia during the halcyon years of Putin's presidency, are on the rise. From Moscow to Vladivostok, hundreds – sometimes thousands – of protestors are taking to the streets, railing against "bad" government economic policies.

Banners reading "Russia without Putin" and "Shame on You Putin," are striking reminders of how fragile the social contract here really was. Few complained about Putin's "sovereign democracy" – which eroded personal freedoms and monopolized state TV into a virtual propaganda mouthpiece – while the petrodollars were rolling in and middle class Russians could enjoy foreign cars and vacations in Greece.

But now, just one company – Gazprom, the Kremlin-owned gas monopoly – has more debt than China and Brazil combined. Western bankers took $40 billion out of the country in January alone. Unemployment has skyrocketed 25 percent since the fall, and the ruble – once the "sterling" currency of a resurgent Russia – has lost 25 percent of its value in the same period.

Russia analysts like Nikolai Markov, visiting scholar at Moscow's Carnegie Center, says that social contract is dead. And he believes that Putin sees the writing on the Kremlin's walls.

"I think that the understanding that it's payback time is coming to Putin's mind step by step," he said. "He had no idea of the scale of the crisis he was facing, the fact that instead of distributing money [as prime minister] he would face very serious problems and share in the responsibility for economic decline.''

The people of Electric Steel know their Russian history, they know that in this country revolutions have always started with poor, angry people protesting in the streets against the Kremlin. And while many here have blamed the government, fewer have found fault with Putin or his hand-picked replacement President Dmitry Medvedev. Their popularity ratings, according to recent polls, have fallen by about 10 percent – a significant drop – but still remain in the 70's, solid by any measure.

Valentina, who wouldn't give me her last name, was one of dozens of Electric Steel pensioners who, to make ends meet, was allowed to open a local flea market in the town. She thanked both Putin and the mayor for the opportunity to earn more cash. "If the price of oil goes back up," she said with a big laugh, "then we'll all live better again!"

As she spoke I saw a woman approach another makeshift counter selling rickety broom heads. The prospective customer examined four or five heads, all quite intensely, running her fingers through each one, before putting them back. She walked away.

"There's not even enough money for people here to buy these cheap things," Valentina whispered.Jim Maceda is an NBC News correspondent based in London currently on assignment in Moscow. He's covered Russia and the former Soviet Union for more than 20 years.

Related links from Newsweek:
Putin faces unrest in Russia's rust belt
Photos of a Russian steel city in decline

 MOSCOW – At Papa's Place Bar & Restaurant in Moscow, inauguration night was in full swing. Red, white and blue balloons hung from the ceiling, while a steady supply of hamburgers and pizza gave the mixed crowd of Russians and expatriates a little taste of America as they gathered to watch Barack Obama's historic inauguration.

"We decided we had to do something for our American friends…and for us Russians….It's not just great for America, it's great for the whole world," said Ekaterina Yezdina, director of the Executive Language Center, who hosted the event.

Max Avdeev / AFP - Getty Images

Russians and American expatriates watch the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama on big screens at an American-style diner in Moscow on Jan. 20.

Other partygoers agreed. "By looking at this now, I have…a feeling of hope that something might actually change. For the better," said Igor Budantsov, 33, a lawyer sporting an American flag in his lapel.

But for Moscow, this gathering was the exception rather than the rule. Unlike elsewhere in the world, there was no sense of urgency here to watch the inauguration or groups of people gathering to watch in homes and bars.  

VIDEO: World watches as Obama takes office

"I don't plan on watching it," said Alexander Moroz, an 18-year-old student, while on a cigarette break outside of the European Shopping Mall in central Moscow hours before the inauguration.

It shouldn't come as any surprise. The political instability during the 1990s here, followed by the stable but de facto one-party rule of the Putin era, has left many in Russia disillusioned and apathetic about politics, whether domestic or international. Pre-election polls showed that while Obama consistently topped McCain, both candidates were easily beat out by those saying they simply had no preference.

More concerned with the financial crisis
Igor Sinebok, a political science student whose class stayed up all election night, said they had no plans to gather for the inauguration. For his part, Moroz said he started becoming more interested in politics late last year, but "only domestic politics, and that was because of the financial crisis."

Russia has been hit hard by the crisis, with the stock market collapsing and ongoing devaluation of the ruble. For many people, this translates into salary cuts, wage deferments or losing their jobs at a time when jobs are becoming scarcer each week.

This doesn't mean that Russians are not interested in the new U.S. president. But with the economic crisis weighing heavily on people's minds, for many here the focus is less on the history of the moment and more on how it will affect the economy.

"I hope that Obama will improve the American economy, which will then improve ours as well," said Irina Dorofeyova, 43, a Moscow hairdresser.

And if the media is a reflection of the general public's interest, this morning's Kommersant newspaper, a leading Russian business daily, had the Obama inauguration on page eight while the cover story dealt with the fate of the ruble.

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin unveils a new instructional judo DVD, adding to his legendary 'tough guy' image.

NBC News' Yonatan Pomrenze reports from Moscow on how in many ways, Putin, Russia's former president and current prime minister, is still center stage in Russian politics.

VIDEO: Putin releases instructional judo video

 MOSCOW – "I'm against that one – the aggressive one – I'm for Obama," said Valentina Savina, a lottery ticket seller on the Old Arbat, Moscow's busy central pedestrian thoroughfare.

"[I'm] against McCain," she added when asked what her views were on the U.S. presidential candidates. "He's against Russia."

Alexander Maleshov, a cab driver in Moscow, agreed. "As far as I know, the Republicans are strongly against us," he said.

VIDEO: Russians watch the U.S. election

Savina and Maleshov are not alone in their views of McCain and the GOP, according to a recent poll of Russians conducted at the beginning of September by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. The survey found that 27 percent of respondents would choose Sen. Barack Obama if they could vote in the U.S. elections, as opposed to just 6 percent choosing Sen. John McCain.

(According to the poll, 34 percent of respondents also said, "I wouldn't vote for anyone," and the remaining 33 percent responded that the question was "hard to answer.")

The results are partly a product of McCain's outspoken criticism of the country and its popular prime minister – and former president – Vladimir Putin. For instance, McCain has advocated excluding Russia from the G8 in response to "diminishing political freedoms" under Putin.

They are also the result of McCain being a member of the Republican Party. In a country where the Bush administration's policies, from the war in Iraq to the planned installation of missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, are highly unpopular, it would be hard for any GOP candidate to gain much of a following.

Also working against McCain is the conflict in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The U.S. and Russia have supported opposite sides, with the U.S. voicing strong support for Georgia and Russia backing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two separatist regions on Georgian territory.

In many ways the Georgia War was fought on the airwaves and the television screens as much as it was on the ground, and Russians' response to the candidates tend to follow what they heard in the Russian media.

And while both candidates were critical of Russia's military actions on Georgian soil beyond the separatist areas, many Muscovites I spoke with quoted McCain's statement at a campaign stop in York, Pa., when he declared that "We [Americans] are all Georgians," as one reason for their leaning toward Obama.  

"In both cases, it will be very hard relations between United States and Russia," said Anton Lopatin, 23, taking a lunch break on the Arbat from his job in financial services.

Many Russians agree with him. Less than a fifth of Russians respondents to the recent poll described U.S. relations as "friendly," "neighborly" or "calm." 

Overall, the saber-rattling over Georgia has sparked a greater interest in U.S. politics and how it can affect Russia.

In the poll, 47 percent of respondent said they "closely" or "somewhat" follow the U.S. elections, up from 36 percent just two months earlier.

"America, it's the biggest country," said Natalia Golubeva, a 26-year-old who works in financial services, "so we are also interested in the policy … of your country."

MOSCOW – Russia's plethora of national holidays are tricky things. Nearly two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is still looking for its national identity – and nowhere is this seen better than in its holidays.

Some holidays have survived the transition from Soviet superpower to resurgent Russia via a weak and chaotic '90s. These include New Years, International Women's Day (March 8), Defenders of the Fatherland Day (February 23) and Victory Day (May 9). Others were done away with, like Constitution Day.

The most interesting batch are those holidays which were either recast from old ones or simply created anew.

Yonatan Pomrenze / NBC News

A wedding party celebrates Family Day in Moscow's Tsaritsino Park on July 8.Â

Take National Unity Day (November 4). It was introduced in 2004 to replace the Day of Accord and Reconciliation, which came into being in 1996 to take the place of the old Soviet Revolution Day, which commemorated the 1917 Communist Revolution. With such a convoluted history, it's no wonder that polls consistently show low percentages of the population actually knowing what some new holidays are supposed to commemorate.

And Unity Day has become the opposite – in Moscow, ultranationalist groups mark the day with anti-foreigner rallies.

So I was curious to see how the newest of the new Russian holidays – the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity, marked on July 8 – would fare. (It should be noted that the day is recognized as a holiday – but it is not an official day off from work.)

It would be no small task, considering the competition from Valentine's Day and a new grassroots holiday referred to as "Conception Day," which has been promoted in some regions to encourage couples to stay home, have sex and make babies for a Russia whose population is declining by over half-a-million people each year. 

A celebration of fidelity
The biggest of the many events being held in Moscow for the holiday was at Tsaritsino, a park full of ponds, fountains and an old estate house. Under a sunny Moscow sky, a concert entertained dozens of young couples who decided to use the new holiday as their wedding date. Their wedding parties mixed in with the many onlookers who decided to come to see what the holiday was all about.

Yonatan Pomrenze / NBC News

A couple celebrates their wedding in Moscow's Tsaritsino Park to mark Family Day on July 8.

"I heard about it on the radio," said Kapitalina Zaitseva, a 74-year-old pensioner who was confident the new holiday would take root in Russia. "Valentine's Day isn't ours. It came from the West. This one is ours….it will strengthen families."

The emphasis of the holiday is not on falling in love, as much as keeping people in it. At ceremonies held across Russia, medals were presented to couples who made it through 25 or 50 years and were still together. In Moscow, a "reconciliation bench" is to be installed with a sloping seat that pushes couple together so they can stay seated until they work out any arguments they are having.

Getting the word out may take more time, though, especially with the younger generation. When asked what holiday it was today, 19-year-old engineering student Sergei Drozdov answered confidently, "The founding of Paris. Or was that yesterday?" Upon hearing about the new Russian holiday, Drozdov figured it must be replacing Women's Day.

Organizers stress that the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity is not meant to replace any other holidays. "This is a holiday celebrating common human values. It has no boundaries and no nationality," said Valentina Petrenko, who chairs the government committee where the initiative for the holiday was put forward. "It can unite many people, not only in this country but abroad as well."

For now, though, the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity still has its work cut out.

"Valentine's Day is about love. People have many loves, but only one family. Starting one and supporting one is work," said Olga Smirnova, who runs a lifestyle magazine in Moscow and came to watch the festivities. Not exactly a sentiment for a holiday card, but it's a start.

MOSCOW –  Russia inaugurated a new president today. And while there was never really any doubt or drama in the March presidential elections here – Dmitry Medvedev was assured of victory the moment Vladimir Putin announced him as his chosen successor – it is still a mystery what exactly this inauguration will mean for Russia.

Since the elections, Russian media and chat rooms have been trying to guess what the power balance will look like after Medvedev takes over the presidency and Putin becomes prime minister – which is expected as early as Thursday.

VIDEO: Who is Medvedev?

The question is: who will really be in charge? Can a "tandem-ocracy," with two leaders at the head, actually work – or will there be power struggles between the two? Media reports say Putin may have as many as 11 deputy prime ministers. The president is the stronger post on paper, but can Medvedev compete with the political capital that Putin enjoys?

For some Russians, it doesn't really matter. Many people I spoke to had no idea when the inauguration is – which may be just the way the Kremlin wants it.

Masha Lipman, a Russia affairs expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said that Putin has established a "non-participation pact" with the Russian public. "People accepted it…as long as you deliver, we will not meddle in politics."

While Western media and governments may criticize what it perceives to be a rollback of democracy in Russia, many here simply want the stability, economic growth and newfound feeling of patriotic pride that Putin's era brought to continue.

Enjoying a sunny day on Red Square this past weekend, retired teacher Irina Ivanova, 73, said she "hopes that the new president will be like Putin. The respect that he commands in the world…he's beginning to lift this country up."

Part of Putin's popularity here is due to the fact that he had such an easy act to follow – almost everyone I spoke to compared Putin's era favorably to the chaos of Yeltsin's.

"Putin is better than any president we've ever had," said Lina Fasulakis, a Moscow businesswoman. "Medvedev will be more of the same. He's Putin's chosen successor."

But it looks like a simple comparison to the past may no longer be enough. While acknowledging Putin's accomplishments, many feel the new president has to start delivering more concrete results. Sasha Zhukov, a 25 year-old engineer, said that the biggest problem is corruption.

"Putin hasn't really done anything about it. We need more active reform," he said, waiting on line at McDonald's outside the Kremlin walls.

These reforms include translating the petrorubles that Russia enjoys from high oil prices into actual improvements on the ground – better infrastructure, overhauling the healthcare system and figuring out a way to check inflation.

"All this money goes to the bureaucrats!" complained Yulya Ivanova, an industrial manager. "I love Russia, but I don't love the Russian government. And Putin is …"

"Quiet!" Her mother, Larisa, cut her off. "If you say that about Putin, he'll print it and then it'll come back to hurt you!"

"We still have freedom of speech here, don't we?" Yulya shot back.

MOSCOW – The Russian elections are over, all the votes have been counted, and the results will be officially certified on Thursday. We all know that Vladimir Putin's former chief of staff – Deputy Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev – won.

In December, at the start of the campaign, the Kremlin reportedly sent out notice to all the regional governors on its payroll that it wanted to see a 70/70 result: 70 percent turnout and 70 percent support for the bureaucrat who Putin hand-picked to succeed him. And the Kremlin got what it demanded – almost to the vote. Medvedev's total count was 70.24 percent on 69.65 percent turnout.

VIDEO: Who is Dimitry Medvedev?

Andreas Gross, the spokesman for the only group of Western observers who dared venture into this electoral experiment Putin calls "managed democracy," said at a press conference that the election was "not free, not fair, but accurate all the same."

That's a diplomatic way of saying, remove all the free TV coverage, the biased reporting, the state broadcast media's ability to create rock stars from rocks, the pressure on employees and students to vote the "right way," the discounted food, the lotteries, the prize money, and the crackdown on all real, anti-Kremlin opposition – and the numbers would still add up to produce a Medvedev victory.  There was no need to massage them.

That tells you a few things: how popular Putin is with his people and how disinterested Russians are with politics in general and democracy in particular.

So, Medvedev won. What does it mean? Don't believe anyone who has an answer. No one knows.

Some analysts suggest that even Putin, who controlled this election – dubbed "Operation Successor" by the media – with an almost pathological obsession, doesn't know either.

That's because, after the world's most predictable "free and democratic" election, to quote Putin, the winners now have to reinvent themselves. And no one knows what that reinvention will look like.

We do know that, constitutionally, Medvedev – as Russia's president – should be in charge of foreign policy and the so-called "power ministries," such as defense and security services. But these are Putin's signature centers of influence inside the Kremlin, and with every post held by one of his former KGB associates – he will presumably still wield power there.

We also know that Putin is expected to be appointed prime minister, a position which is responsible for the economy and oversees the government, but which wields significantly less power than the president in Russia.

Weighing the opinions of a host of Russian and Western political analysts, the jury is clearly out on how this in many ways unique tandem is going to work.

Some, like Ed Lucas, author of "The New Cold War," claim that, by definition, this "diarchy" can't work. "Russia's always been led by one person," said Lucas. "So either Medvedev's just going to be a figurehead or Putin really has to leave the scene or it's going to be unstable, and I think the third of those is most likely."

Others, like Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former liberal member of the Russian Parliament who is now the host of a radio show on current affairs, believe that Medvedev and Putin are such soul mates that, with a little portfolio realignment, they will bring stability to a country no longer interested in real reform.

''I think Putin will be more focused now on the economy,'' Ryzhkov ventured. ''I think he'll keep control over the power ministries as well, those so-called 'siloviki' – the military, the secret services and the Prosecutor's Office. But Medvedev will focus more on foreign policy.''

Still others see a more radical scenario: Putin, after a year or two of transition – the time it takes for Medvedev to feel secure at the top – will step down and leave the governing to his one-time protégé. And don't think that's simply a ruse to allow Putin to run again for President in 2012.

"I don't believe in comebacks in Russian politics," explained Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of "Russia in Global Affairs" magazine. ''In my view, Medvedev will, step by step, create his own power base and Putin will disappear from politics. Not from the Russian public arena, but from practical, day-to-day politics.''

If that's true, if Medvedev is the man, does it mean that the West, and particularly the United States, can look forward to a time, in the not too distant future, when a healthy, confident Russian president presides over a stable nation with a strong economy? Someone who, if you believe his stump speeches, espouses a policy of personal freedoms and business savvy? Might Medvedev be the "dream Russian leader" the West has been waiting for since the fall of the Soviet Union? A Putin with a heart and a soft touch? A Boris Yeltsin, with youth and drive?

Not so fast, says Lucas. ''There are some good things about Medvedev: he's not an ex-KGB guy and uses some quite liberal rhetoric. On the other hand, Putin used to talk that way too in the early years of his rule, and look at him!''

On May 7, Medvedev will be inaugurated, and Putin, shortly thereafter, is expected to be named prime minister. As such, Putin will then be asked to form a new government, which the pair of leaders are already vetting and beginning to choose people for. After which, over time, the world will watch and learn if Dimitry Medvedev is indeed Russia's president, or Putin's puppet. 

Jim Maceda is an NBC News Correspondent based in London who is currently on assignment in Moscow. He was previously based in the former Soviet Union and Russia.