Since president Vladimir Putin was confirmed in office last May, he has been scorned for being a dictator in the making and hailed as the most liberal and reform-minded politician Russia has had since its rebuilding began. Depending on where you stand, he will still fit both descriptions.
"There are two Putins: an economic one and a political one," says Roland Nash, senior political analyst with Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital.
Widely believed at first to be a creation of "the Family" - the group of well-connected businessmen and oligarchs close to the Kremlin during the Yeltsin era - Putin has made considerable progress in consolidating his personal hold on power. But fighting between the three Kremlin clans: the Family, the Chekists - an authoritarian hardline group - and the St Petersburg liberals, a group of economists championing free markets, is not over.
At the beginning of 2000, the Family got off to a good start, but Putin rounded on them over the summer and by the start of November the battle was in its final phases.