What will the new year bring for Russia?

Monday could give an indication of what the New Year has in store for Russia as the country comes out of its semi-official two-week winter break (which runs from around Christmas, past New Years Day and through Russian Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7). Monday is also the day when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's controversial tax on imported cars goes into effect.

Putin says the tax is meant to boost Russia's domestic auto industry and, in turn, support Russia's industrial base during the global recession. But many Russians balked at that explanation. They say that the quality of cars built by Russian companies is poor, which is why imported used cars are popular among working and middle class Russians, especially the further east you go in the vast country. The city of Vladivostok has a thriving industry in importing cars from Japan, people there say that the new law won't help the Russian economy it will only hurt theirs. Many Russians also asked if Putin thought so highly of Russian cars why did he and many other top lawmakers drive Mercedes?

The announcement of the tax sparked public protests across the country in December. Most were small, only a few hundred people on average, but what's more important is that the protests happened in the first place, since public protests have been very rare in Russia over the past few years. It will be interesting to see if more occur now that the tax is going into effect; people in Vladivostok have already staged one rally in opposition to the new law.

It will also be interesting to see how the Putin/Medvedev regime deals with the protests if they do spread across the country. For the past eight years the Russian public has generally been willing to follow Putin, wherever he led. But for most of that time Russia was also enjoying an economic boom. Russia was arguably a more democratic place during the 1990s, but it was also an economic mess - in the minds of many Russians the two ideas, Democracy and economic chaos, have been linked. That's why there's been little opposition things that Putin has done that have been seen as “anti-democratic”, people have identified Putin with stability and stability with better times (it's even been said that Russia is such a large country it needs a ‘strong leader’ in charge).

But times have changed, now not only is Russia dealing with the economic slowdown that's hitting the rest of the world, they also are suffering from a steep drop in oil prices (which has fueled Russia's economic growth these past few years). Inflation and unemployment are growing problems, and there are creeping worries that the hard times of the 90s could return.

Will Russians continue to believe in Putin? This next week could give a good indication.