MOSCOW, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Putin, stability and strength - three words united the few thousand demonstrators who staged a choreographed, if muted, answer on Monday to protests demanding Russia's rulers resign.
Hundreds of people, many draped in the red, white and blue national flag, vowed they would not stand idly by if any opposition party tried to throw the country into turmoil again.
Youngsters and pensioners alike invoked the chaos of the 1990s at the demonstration, designed to show support for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, President Dmitry Medvedev and ruling party United Russia, after tens of thousands protested against them at weekend rallies.
"My conscience told me to come. I support the president, whether it is Putin or Medvedev. I just want stability," said Alexander Melnikov, 50, a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"The country will only develop if there is stability. We don’t need any more testing times like in the 1990s when everything fell apart."
It was a frequent refrain at a demonstration near the Kremlin which the police said was attended by more than 25,000 people. Reuters correspondents put the figure at a few thousand, up to 5,000 at most.
Putin, many said, was Russia’s saviour. His predecessor Boris Yeltsin had brought the country to its knees, with thousands losing their life savings in a financial crash while a few made fortunes from Russia’s oil, metals and gas.
Russia’s image was all but destroyed by a leader who went cap in hand to international financial institutions for money to pay pensions and workers’ salaries and fought, then lost, a war with its breakaway region of Chechnya, they said.
For 24-year-old Ilya Shushkov, who was a child when the financial crisis struck in 1998, Putin is the "ideal Russian man".
"I respect the political course he has chosen to take. He has done a lot for this country. Before Putin, every year thousands of youngsters were being killed in the Chechen war. He stopped it," said Shushkov, one of the many youth activists who organised the demonstration to coincide with Russia’s Constitution Day.
"Since the 1990s he has done huge things. He has made Russia stronger and made it count on the international stage. I think he’s creating a new Russia, with a Russian style of democracy."
IDEOLOGICAL LEADER
Putin’s aura of invincibility has been eroded by the rallies on Saturday that brought tens of thousands on to the streets to protest against a Dec. 4 parliamentary election they said was rigged.
The weekend protests, which brought together Communists, nationalists, liberals and a large number of trendy youths, seemed to have shaken Putin, who has said he will listen to the protesters but has promised no action.
But he has regularly topped opinion polls and his re-election as president in March still seems inevitable. His supporters’ faith is firm.
"He’s the person who, when Russia was falling apart in the 1990s, strengthened the country, boosted the economy; he was the person who little by little got Russia back on its feet, who brought it from its knees," said Kirill Shchitov, a coordinator of United Russia’s youth movement, the Young Guard.
"Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) is our ideological leader and will remain that way," he told Reuters by telephone.
To a heavy thud of drums and a rock vocal screaming "Russia – forward", leader after leader at the rally proclaimed Russia’s greatness to a crowd of mostly pensioners and youths, who flocked in small groups, chatting and smoking cigarettes.
Some looked puzzled when asked why they had come. "For Putin," Vasily, 22, said. When questioned further, he answered: "Because he’s our leader." Those who had come from different cities took photos of themselves in front of Red Square.
Putin accused the United States last week of stirring up protests against his 12-year rule and said foreign countries were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence Russian elections.
Timur Prokopenko, leader of the Young Guard and parliamentary deputy, said: "I am not a specialist in how the protests were organised but we have evidence that youngsters were influenced by outside forces."
On one thing he was clear.
"I just want to say that we do not need a revolution," he said. "And we, and our partners, will work hard to prevent one."
