EVER since he was a scrawny boy chasing rats from his apartment block here, Vladimir Putin has enjoyed being in charge. Today a pair of upcoming national elections signal the end of his powerful eight-year presidency, but few in his former hometown, or elsewhere in this vast country, believe he'll go.
"He can't just leave," said Stanislav Shvetz, 80, who lives in the same six-floor building at 12 Baskov Pereulok, central Saint Petersburg, where Putin grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in what was then called Leningrad.
"He's never going to give it all up," he added, laughing at the apparent absurdity.
The constitution bars Putin from seeking re-election in a March 2 presidential poll. In December 2 parliamentary elections, for which campaigning began yesterday, he will be a candidate from the ruling United Russia party, although he can't take up a seat while president.
Yet despite his apparently limited options, nothing suggests the former KGB officer, enjoyi! ng 80% popularity ratings in the dying days of his second term, is a lame duck.
Prompted by slavishly pro-government media, Russians credit Putin with eight years of economic growth.
They adore his attacks on unco-operative tycoons at home and on US President George W Bush abroad.
Four months from the presidential election, not a single major politician has announced a Kremlin bid.
Yury Kuznets, 48, a courier in Saint Petersburg, says most Russians don't even see the point of elections: "We already have a leader we like."
The Putin legacy is tangible on Baskov Pereulok, where he once lived with his mother and father, and two other families, in the harsh conditions of a Soviet communal apartment on the fifth floor.
"There was no hot water, no bath. The toilet was revolting," said Putin's primary school teacher, Vera Guryevich, 74, who still lives in Saint Petersburg.
"It was hard for everyone," she told AFP.
In a rare personal interview soon after h! e took power in 2000 with Russian journalists, Putin recounted! how the re were "hordes of rats in the front entrance. My friends and I used to chase them around with sticks".
Now one of the world's most influential leaders, and a picture of sobriety, Putin says he was a "hooligan", often late for school, always ready for a fight.
He took up judo - in which he eventually won a black belt - "as soon as it became clear that a combative character was not enough to be number one on the street".
Today a glistening bank flanks his former home. Imported cars clog the courtyard where he played and fought with neighbourhood boys, although the archway leading to the yard sports a less welcome symbol of Putin's era: ultra-nationalist graffiti and a sticker advertising a racist march.
Putin's confrontational boyhood character - coupled with what Guryevich remembers as fierce ambition, secrecy, and diplomatic skills - certainly remains recognisable.
Most Russians praise him for smashing the Chechen independence movement, imprisoning or exiling! disloyal millionaires, and going head to head with Western rivals.
Critics - only a handful of whom get heard here - point to huge atrocities in Chechnya, the destruction of independent television stations, the emasculation of parliament, and unsolved murders of opponents.
Now both sides in that debate are watching with hope or fear to see what the enigmatic leader does next.
One theory is that Putin will become prime minister, or United Russia leader, then return in snap elections as president for a non-consecutive third term, while a loyal technocrat keeps the seat warm.
United Russia's current leader, Boris Gryzlov, predicts "Putin will remain national leader whatever post he holds" - talk that Communist boss Gennady Zyuganov says signals "an authoritarian coup".
Another theory is that some of Russia's ruthless political and business clans are themselves plotting to make Putin stay in power, fearing chaos if the main referee in their disputes were to leav! e.
Guryeva, still bright-eyed after all these years, says P! utin sho uld step down gracefully, even if he needs more time in power.
"What's eight years? Consider what he inherited - a Russia in pieces," she said. "I think he'll be back ... I don't know how, but he will."
But a childhood experience at 12 Baskov Pereulok will also have taught Putin to beware of overestimating his powers.
"Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove it into a corner," Putin told Russian journalists. "It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it spun around and threw itself at me ... I got a quick and lasting lesson on the meaning of the word 'cornered'." - AFP
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