Beyond the gleaming skyscrapers of the capital, there is another Russia.
This is the Russia of small towns and decaying wooden villages, a countryside strewn with the remains of long abandoned collective farms, untouched by the recent oil wealth.
There are problems with jobs, electricity and water.
So you might expect people out here to be critical of their president.
Not so.
From the first truck stop, where we met a 63-year-old lady washing dishes to supplement her pension, to the babushkas manning markets stalls with pickles and vegetables in the cold in Valdai, we heard a litany of complaints, but none of it apparently Mr Putin's fault.
Instead they described the Putin they see on the evening (state-controlled) TV news - the strong president striding from one high profile meeting to another, berating officials and travelling the world to stand up for Russia overseas.
"Putin can't solve everything, you know," one lady told us. "He can't personally do everything in the whole of the country to make things happen."
The implication was clearly that if he could, he would.
A retired tractor driver used the Russian word "muzhik" to describe Mr Putin.
It comes from the Russian for peasant, but means something more - a "manly man", a man of strength and integrity, a "salt of the earth" type who can be trusted.
The rouble has just hit an all-time low, capital flight for the year is expected to top $120bn, and inflation is more than 8%.
The oil and gas-dependent economy is stalling.
But domestically, Mr Putin is flying.
Pumped up by the patriotic fervour whipped up by the national media, Mr Putin's approval rating is at 86%.
Whilst some of that could be the product of a population long-schooled in telling those in authority what they want to hear, the people we spoke to seemed genuinely happy with their president - he brings stability.
The older generation remembers the collapse of communism, and the painful transition to democracy.
Revolution in Russia tends to be followed by violence and uncertainty - and history says it doesn't end well.
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Gallery: Vladimir Putin - Man Of Action
Vladimir Putin has earned a reputation as something of an action man. Here in 2013 he is seen shaking hands with a walrus on a visit to the under-construction Primorsky Aquarium.
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Seemingly always keen to be seen with members of the animal kingdom, he was also pictured touching a dolphin during his trip to the new attraction on the Russky Island, in the far eastern city of Vladivostok.
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Here, at a Moscow sports complex in St Petersburg, he shows off his judo skills.
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He joined a group of scientists in the Arctic to help tag endangered polar bears.
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In the Siberian mountains, he rode bare-chested on a horse.
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Mr Putin walks along the Khemchik River in southern Siberia's Tuva region.
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The Russian leader with a big catch from a fishing trip in Siberia ...
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... during which he was also photographed getting familiar with some other wild animals.
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On a trip to Chkalov island, Mr Putin attached a satellite tracking tag to a Beluga whale.
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He has taken to the skies...
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Here, the president rolls in the snow with excitable dogs.
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During a dive to an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula, he returned to the surface with a precious artefact - but it later emerged that it had been planted in advance.
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Mr Putin also made a grand entrance on a Harley Davidson at a biker festival in the town of Novorossiysk.
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Mr Putin sits in a car from the Renault Formula One team before test driving it at a racing track in Leningrad Region.
Some of the ladies in Valdai said they had seen Mr Putin flying over in his helicopter, on his way to his private residence.
But they didn't seem to resent it, or the millions of roubles, rather they seemed to find it reassuring - that he was acting as a president should.
Russia is a vast country, and, so the logic goes, it needs a strong hand to hold it together.
Mr Putin is still the 'muzhik' out here.
