Quote in context:
So far the state has not interfered in people’s personal lives. It gives them freedom to make money, consume, travel abroad, drive foreign cars and listen to any music they like. They are even free to criticise the Kremlin on radio, in print and on the internet, though not on television. And although Russia’s elections are stage-managed, the support for Mr Putin is genuine. During the war in Georgia it hit almost 90% in opinion polls. The biased television coverage plays its part, but unlike Soviet propagandists, who told people what to think, Russian propagandists tell people what they want to hear, says Georgy Satarov, who used to be an aide to a former president, Boris Yeltsin, and now runs INDEM, a think-tank. What people want to hear, especially as they are getting richer, is that their country is “rising from its knees”, sticking its flag in the Arctic Circle, winning football games and chasing the Americans out of Georgia.
