THE SWANKY equestrian club outside Moscow where Vladimir Putin hosted foreign academics and analysts for the annual Valdai dinner on November 11th exudes wealth and confidence. With a solarium and organic oats for the horses, and French haute cuisine and an 1880 Armagnac for their owners, the club shows the benefits of Mr Putin's 12-year rule as president and prime minister. It is also redolent of the power he wants for 12 more years after returning as president in March.

Strolling in only two-and-a-half hours late, Mr Putin appeared fit, confident and relaxed. But he offered little by way of new ideas, vision or plans for his next term. Challenged with the view that Russia and its exhausted political system were heading towards stagnation, he disarmingly said, “I have nothing to object to in what you are saying”, adding later that “our system is not perfect.” But he then argued once again for all the advantages brought by his rule. “There was a civil war in this country in the early and mid-1990s…the economy and the social sphere were in an utter collapse.”

In fact the first Chechen war was over by 1996 and the economy was recovering before Mr Putin came to power. But contrasting himself with the 1990s remains essential to his political appeal. After a decade with the unruly Boris Yeltsin, Russia longed for the stability that Mr Putin promised. He was different from Mr Yeltsin in age and temperament. Boosted by strong growth on the back of rising oil prices, he was able to eliminate rival sources of power while retaining broad popularity.

But 12 years on stability has soured into stagnation—and Mr Putin's brand has gone out of fashion. Stunts such as posing half-naked on a horse, riding a Harley Davidson or shooting tigers have become the subject of ridicule and irritation. A symbol of hope for a return to normality has mutated into a symbol of hopelessness, much exacerbated by his proposed job swap with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president. Mr Medvedev may never have been a real alternative to Mr Putin, but he held out the faint possibility of a transition of power. This has now been shut off. The thought of Mr Putin and his system carrying on for another 12 years depresses the many Russians who want change.

This general tiredness with Mr Putin is beginning to be reflected in his ratings. He is still be backed by a seemingly impressive 60% of the population, but his support is fragile as it is largely passive and based on a lack of alternatives. Moreover, the index of his popularity (ie, the gap between approval and disapproval) has fallen from 57% to 24%, a lower level than it reached in the crisis of 2008-09. “The nature of his popularity rating is that it looks solid, but could turn into dust very quickly,” says Kirill Rogov, a political commentator. Whether it does depends largely on the state of the economy.

Throughout his remarks to the Valdai group, Mr Putin seemed blithely confident that Russia's economic growth would not be affected by the global crisis. Others are more doubtful, including his former finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, who predicts that the oil price could fall to $60 a barrel, presenting Russia with challenges as serious as those in Europe and America. Mr Kudrin's resignation, after Mr Putin's promise to make Mr Medvedev prime minister, also lowers the chances of the sort of authoritarian modernisation that some liberals had once hoped for.

In foreign policy Mr Putin remained unrepentantly blunt, notably on missile defence (see article). He promoted his pet idea of a Eurasian union to foster economic integration with Russia's former Soviet neighbours. But the Kremlin has neither the money nor the popular support for this—and Ukraine, the biggest potential prize, remains unenthusiastic. The scandalous imprisonment of a Russian pilot in Tajikistan and Russia's response of rounding up and deporting Tajik workers from Moscow speak louder than all the windy rhetoric in Mr Putin's Eurasian manifesto.

The two main concerns of ordinary Russians today are corruption and nationalism. But Mr Putin can exploit neither. He might initiate an anti-corruption show case, but he cannot fight the corruption that glues his system together. Nor can he play on popular anti-Caucasian sentiment, if only for fear of driving off his ally, Ramzan Kadyrov, who keeps Chechnya under control.

In any case, Mr Putin does not really see any need for radical change. As Alexander Voloshin, a former Kremlin chief of staff, puts it, “everyone tells us that there will be a catastrophe if we don't do something. We don't do it and there is no catastrophe.” So Mr Putin's next term is likely to be about preservation and stagnation. In this spirit Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's press secretary, recently talked up Leonid Brezhnev as a “huge plus” for the country. Yet his era led to collapse. With its big cash reserves and low debt, Russia may find that economic problems now take time to hit home. But when they do, their effect is likely to be unusually severe—just as at the end of the Soviet Union.