'I have a story for you,' says my young Moscow acquaintance, Konstantin. 'It goes like this: President George Bush phones Prime Minister Putin.
'"Vladimir," he says, "please can you help me with my election campaign?"
'So Putin sends his 'magician', Russia's Central Election Commission Chairman Churov to Washington. But when Churov returns a few weeks later, he is downcast and apologetic: "Forgive me, Mr Putin, I could only achieve a 45 per cent vote for your party, United Russia."'
Konstantin has a lot of such jokes, full of knowing scorn for Russia's leadership, especially 'Tsar' Putin, with his self-intoxication and fawning entourage, ignorant of political realities on the street and beyond the reach of advice. Did he really think his presidential victory confirmed the love of the Russian people for his leadership?
Among Westerners and locals alike, Moscow seems to be afloat on scurrilous innuendo, focused on Putin's bully-boy tactics, his fondness for young women and his greed bordering on the pathological.
Still, for a newcomer, the narratives are also shifting and opaque. Ever since the eruption of street protests after last December's parliamentary (Duma)elections, there has been so much focus on a liberal wind of change — or at least a steady breeze.
There seem to be cracks appearing in the Kremlin's legendary spin-doctoring. Its use of 'administrative resources' to ensure the electoral outcome, including the pre-election allegations of an assassination conspiracy against Putin by Chechen separatists, seemed especially to have lacked credibility.
The Opposition Movement is said to have unsettled the Kremlin's powerbrokers. The media has been more open to public debate; and Putin responded to the campaign against electoral fraudulence by installing CC TV cameras in almost all of the 93,000 polling stations across the country.The local media estimated that more than a million volunteers were mobilised to monitor the booths.
And yet Putin's undisputed victory was a confusing result. At a press conference the day after the election, independent monitoring organisation Golos deducted a whopping 15 per cent from the government's official victory tally of more than 63 per cent.
Alongside a very public recognition, at least in Moscow and St Petersburg, that Putin does indeed lead a government for whom stealing an election was no more than business-as-usual, it appeared that around half of Russian voters still supported him.
For some commentators the explanation lies with the failures of the Opposition voice.
These days, Moscow is an in-your-face consumerist, entrepreneurial city. Along the well-swept avenues around