This year, young people are coming out in record numbers to support their political candidates, not just in the United States but in Russia as well.

Although the phenomenon has been relatively ignored by the Western media, young people in Russia have become markedly more politically active during Vladimir Putin’s second term in office, a striking change for a country where young people (ages 18-35) have traditionally been among the most politically apathetic segment of the population. In the 2000 elections, for example, Putin’s support among pensioners was significantly higher than it was among young people.

Recently, however, young Russians have begun to display new patterns of both political and economic behavior that have led pollsters to refer to them as the “Putin Generation.” The importance of this generation is epitomized by the rise of Dmitry Medvedev who, at 42, is not only Russia’s youngest president, but also the youngest leader in the G8. This generation’s values will pose a fundamentally new and different challenge to the West—how to deal with an increasingly prosperous and self-confident Russia.

Respect for the Past, Hope for the Future

Some observers of post-Soviet youth have emphasized the values that they share with their parents. Writing in the Washington Post in August 2007, academics Sarah Mendelson and Theodore Gerber, for example, warn that “a new generation of Russians who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union, ambivalent about Stalin, and hostile toward the United States may jeopardize US-Russian relations long after Putin is gone.”

But a comparison of nine different surveys of Russian youth since 2005, conducted by the Fund for Public Opinion, the Yury Levada Analytical Center, and the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), reveals that what young people admire most about the past is not the regime or its ideology—words like “socialism,” communism,” and even “USSR” are perceived positively by less than 5 percent of young people, and only 6 percent say they would have liked to have lived in Soviet times. Instead, what they find admirable is the sense of common purpose their grandparents shared and how it united the country and made citizens feel proud. Young Russians growing up during the 1990s saw this inheritance, and along with it any sense of pride in the country’s history, trashed in the mass media. Not surprisingly, as these young people mature, a counter-reaction has ensued.

One of the first to note the rise of conservative sentiments among young people was Alexander Tsipko, director of political programs at the Gorbachev Foundation. During his travels across the country lecturing to young audiences, Tsipko said he was struck by their yearning for a contemporary patriotic agenda. His own generation, the generation of the 1960s, discovered patriotism “through books, through the beautiful minds and words of pre-revolutionary Russian thinkers.” By contrast, the current generation has embraced patriotism as a defense mechanism against the blanket criticism of Russia’s past that left them with nothing of their own to believe in. “Just as Christian asceticism was a moral protest against the debauchery and dissipation of decrepit Rome,” he writes, “our youth conservatism and youth patriotism is a protest against the defeatism of the liberal elite. We now see the emergence of a Russian conservative elite that we didn’t have in late 1980s and early 1990s, when the fate of the country was hanging in the balance.”

According to Dmitry Polikanov, Director of International Relations at the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center, today’s youth patriotism combines a healthy respect for past Soviet achievements (especially for the sacrifices that their parents and grandparents made to achieve them) with an ambition to see Russia become a “great power.” Asked to describe specifically what will make Russia “great” again, roughly half point to Russia’s history, traditions, and “spirituality,” while the other half point to economic growth, security, and the overall well-being of its citizens. Less than 2 percent express any sympathy for skinheads or National Bolsheviks.

In the past, exhortations to restore past glories failed to make much of an impact on young people. The present generation, however, seems willing to translate their longing for a Russia they can be proud of into support for Putin’s political agenda.

“More Work, More Money, More Sex”

The Putin Generation is the first politically active post-Soviet generation. According to Alexander Oslon, general director of the Public Opinion Foundation, they are “entirely different” from previous generations. A 2006 survey conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion focused on some of the personality traits that set the Putin Generation apart: They tend to be bolder than their parents, viewing aggressiveness as a manifestation of self-confidence and initiative. Unlike their parents and grandparents, who are appalled by the emergence of the “super rich,” they are proud that Russia has the world’s second largest number of billionaires, and they either hope to make the list of Russia’s richest individuals themselves or see their children on it.

Having only the vaguest memories of the end of the Soviet era, they have little or no nostalgia for it and are quite comfortable in this new era of capitalism, electoral and media pluralism, and travel abroad. They shift primary responsibility for economic welfare from the state to the individual. In morality and religion, they “demonstrate almost Protestant attitudes,” emphasizing personal salvation and communication with God much more than participation in church life and the observance of religious customs. A 2007 study of 17-26 year olds, conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences, concludes by describing them as “relaxed about planning for the future. They not only talk of wanting to achieve success in various forms—they actually believe they can do it.”

The emergence of this new personality type was foreshadowed by a little noted 2005 survey of college educated young persons, aged 18-31, conducted by BBDO Worldwide, one of the world’s leading advertising agencies. It compared young people in Russia to their counterparts in seven West European countries and came to some startling conclusions. Young Russians turned out to be much more optimistic about their future than their European counterparts (79 percent to 46 percent), and more motivated to achieve their ambitions.