Recent social protests in Russia, starting from Vladivostok in late 2008 culminating with Kaliningrad in early 2010 and others, have raised the question of the Putin-Medvedev regime’s ability to maintain social stability. Although protests so far have not been tremendously massive and organized, it looks like citizens’ patience has run out. The economic crisis along with the Kremlin’s “overmanaged democracy”, the almost unchanged political system, government’s inefficient dialogue with citizens and its sector-by-sector approach to decisionmaking, often ignoring regional interests, restrictive electoral laws are all intertwined in the social unrest. What can be done is to switch to free and fair elections, not just relatively free ones, to restore federalism, and to promote the division of power and strengthen the institutions.