In 2000, The year Vladimir Putin ascended to the presidency, the sociologist Yuri Levada published an essay titled, The Wily Man, “an attempt to work though what for him had become a frustrating mystery: the persistence of the Russian personality type he had spent so much time coming to understand.” In his essay Levada identifies this new species of post-Soviet Russia as one that “not only tolerates deception, but it is willing to be deceived, and even requires self-deception for the sake of its own preservation.” It is clever and resourceful creature.