AS a journalist, the best part of covering the recent wave of protests and uprisings against autocrats is seeing stuff you never imagined you'd see - like, in Moscow last week, when some opponents of Vladimir Putin's decision to become president again, for possibly 12 more years, hung a huge yellow banner on a rooftop facing the Kremlin with Putin's face covered by a big X, next to the words "Putin Go Away" in Russian.

The sheer brazenness of such protests and the anger at Prime Minister Putin among the urban middle classes here for treating them like idiots by just announcing that he and President Dmitri Mevedev were going to switch jobs were unthinkable a year ago. The fact that the youths who put up the banner were apparently not jailed also bespeaks how much Putin understands that he is on very thin ice and can't afford to create any "martyrs" that would enrage the antigovernment protesters, who gathered again in Moscow on Saturday.

But what will Putin do next? Will he really fulfill his promise to let new parties emerge or just wait out his opposition, which is divided and still lacks a real national leader? Putin's Russia is at a crossroads. It has become a "sort-of-but-not-really-country." Russia today is sort of a democracy, but not really. It's sort of a free market, but not really. It's sort of got the rule of law to protect businesses, but not really. It's sort of a European country, but not really. It has sort of a free press, but not really. Its cold war with America is sort of over, but not really. It's sort of trying to become something more than a petro-state, but not really.

Putin himself is largely responsible for both the yin and the yang. When he became president in 2000, Russia was not sort of in trouble. It was really in trouble - and spiraling downward. Using an iron fist, Putin restored order and solidified the state, but it was cemented not by real political and economic reforms but rather by a massive increase in oil prices and revenues. Nevertheless, many Russians were, and still are, grateful.

Along the way, Putin spawned a new wealthy corrupt clique around him, but he also ensured that enough of Russia's oil and mineral bounty trickled down to the major cities, creating a small urban middle class that is now demanding a greater say in its future. But Putin is now stalled. He's brought Russia back from the brink, but he's been unable to make the political, economic and educational changes needed to make Russia a modern European state.