At state level, Russia's spiritual rebirth was symbolized by the rebuilding of the vast Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in central Moscow, which had been notoriously dynamited by Stalin in 1931. The project was initiated by Yeltsin, as Russian president, and the popular mayor of Moscow, Yury Luzhkov, and completed - thanks to almost superhuman effort - within the decade. It was paid for by voluntary contributions, raised in part from Russia's new rich - the "oligarchs" and smaller entrepreneurs who had profited from the disorderly privatizations of state industry in the early 1990s. But there were gifts from Russia's "old rich", too - the descendants of noble families who had fled abroad from Soviet power. Their names, as benefactors - linking old Russia and new across a century - are inscribed in the cathedral entrance.
But the visibility of the Orthodox Church in Russia today is not only, or even primarily, an expression of Russians' religious faith. Only a minority claim to be believers or attend church regularly. It is at least as much an expression of
Russianness. In Soviet times, church weddings or christenings tended to be confined to rural areas and were, even then, acts of personal defiance. Today, the number of church weddings, christenings, and funerals has soared. As president, Yeltsin was a regular at services on Russian holidays, and he reinstated Christmas and Easter as national holidays. Vladimir Putin and now Dmitry Medvedev have followed suit, the former having apparently disclosed early in his presidency that he had been christened and still wore the pectoral cross given to him by his grandmother.
But the revival of interest in pre-revolutionary Russia extends far beyond the reintegration of the Orthodox Church into the life of the post-Soviet Russian state. And it goes far beyond simple nostalgia. With the communist system demonstrably bankrupt in every sense and the accelerated free-market reforms of the 1990s summarily ended by the crash of the ruble in 1998, there has been a quest to find other, Russian, ways of doing things. Pyotr Stolypin, the great reforming prime minister under the last tsar, Nicholas II, has been a particular object of study. He and other political and judicial luminaries of the early twentieth century are frequently cited as reference points by, among others, Russia's current president, Dmitry Medvedev,
Class and money are also back as strands of national life, if not in the mass return of aristocratic families and those who sought intellectual freedom in die emigration, then in a revival of some of their ways. Etiquette and formal manners are in the ascendant. Winter balls, modelled on those described so graphically by Leo Tolstoy, are a feature of the social scene. Even the language is changing, as Soviet concepts and formulations are dropped, to be replaced by more elegant, often older, turns of phrase.
The appearance of a new moneyed class, initially in Moscow, but extended now to St Petersburg and increasingly other major cities, was accompanied in its first wave by ostentatious consumption. Moscow's western car showrooms and luxury boutiques could not restock fast enough for their Russian clientele. Many of those early excesses, though, have been attenuated.
The 1998 economic collapse swept away some fortunes. But among the surviving billionaires, spending habits have been changing. As well as funding property purchases abroad and children's education at British public schools, Russian money has fuelled the international art and antiques market, as wealthy Russians see themselves honour-bound to repatriate masterpieces lost to their homeland as a result of revolution and war.
Townscapes are changing fast. Many cities, not only Moscow and St Petersburg, are now ringed with new housing, both high-rise and in executive estates, much of it for private sale. Out-of-town shopping malls have mushroomed, catering to a new generation of urban blue- and white-collar workers with disposable income, and homes to equip. Standards of dress and nutrition are now mostly indistinguishable from those across the western world.
Even so, the discrepancies between rich and poor, and between Russia's private and public domains, remain glaring. In Moscow and St Petersburg some of the most expensive shops and restaurants in the world coexist with stalls where street-sweepers snack on pancakes and pies bought for pennies. Glitzy casinos and clubs tout for custom, even as the destitute elderly or disabled beg from passers-by.
Although many town centres are in the course of impressive renovation, with Moscow and St Petersburg leading the way, much public housing remains sub-standard, in rural areas, more remote villages are dying, their mostly elderly populations marooned by changed social priorities. Even in the many newly prosperous villages, where every house seems to have new window frames and a new roof, serviceable footpaths, let alone roads or even mains water and electricity, remain a distant dream. What changes the individual can make are mostly complete; where state effort is needed, however, work has barely begun.
The bonus from surging oil and gas prices in the first years of the new century may have boosted the Russian state's image at home and influence abroad, but it has not - yet - been translated into urgently needed modernization in any generalized way. A recent master plan outlines projects to bring the dilapidated infrastructure up to international standards by 2020. But neglected transport networks, school buildings, and medical facilities all represent large bills accumulating for the future.
Image, though, counts for much. At grass-roots level, resurgent Russian patriotism is tangible, matched by a revival of regional and civic pride. The contemporary art and literary scene has a dynamism and fearlessness reminiscent of Berlin in the decade after the Wall fell. Theatre, ballet, and cinema, which languished when Soviet state subsidies fell away, are starting to flourish once again.
Yet it is not just in material things that the Soviet era still casts its shadow. Although a whole generation of young adults has now grown up without communism, their parents and grandparents bear the scars of those years, in terms of poor health, damaged family life, and an unspoken fear of arbitrary state power. To all this, during the 1990s, was added sudden exposure to a capricious free market, an increase in violent crime, and the risk that the still-fragile state might fracture further.
It was these old and new fears that Vladimir Putin set out to allay when he became president. But the hand he applied was at times heavy. The degree of force used against the Caucasus region of Chechnya when separatists there renewed their fight for independence was condemned outside Russia, and hy brave souls within, Putin set limits on the freedom of state broadcasting, although the Internet and satellite stations are increasingly available and uncensored. What were conceived of as ambitious reforms of the judiciary and state bureaucracy were compromised by corruption. At the same time, the fast- growing middle class, a rediscovery of family life, and an upward trend in the birth rate testify to a nation that believes again in its future.
Today's Russia remains a land of contrasts: between old and new, east and west, town and country, between its public and private faces. And nowhere are they more striking than in central Moscow, wrhere the luxury shops that have replaced the old state department store, GUM, confront Lenin's Mausoleum across Red Square, while the fearsome Lubyanka, now home to Russia's state security service, looks out onto a modest stone monument dedicated to those who died in Soviet prison camps. Funded by individual donations, this is the closest thing Russia has to a national monument to the estimated 15-30 million victims of the Gulag. A true reckoning with the past is still ahead.