Letter from Moscow:The race to replace Vladimir Putin as the next Russian president has already begun among the country's political elite while many still wonder who really runs Russia.
With "Kremlinology" back in vogue, the slightest movement among the higher echelons of Putin's closest confidants is interpreted as a heavy hint about who is most likely to earn his approval later this year - an endorsement that should guarantee favourable media and, therefore, electoral backing in next March's poll.
Last week's call for Putin to stay on may yet gather momentum, despite the formal putdown from the president's press office to the suggestion.
After all, one of Putin's key advisers, Vladimir Surkov, recently compared his boss to the four-term US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, encouraging conspiracy theorists to wonder if this may also become Russia's destiny.
With a strong executive and a weak Duma, most power rests inside a few offices nestled between Red Square and the Moskva river, which have a huge influence over this energy-rich nuclear power and, therefore, the rest of the world. The inhabitants of the city's ancient citadel are often categorised into specific bickering camps, with the siloviki, the officials linked to the KGB and the army, considered the strongest single faction.
Many critics simply dismiss Russia's democratic credentials altogether and insist that this group runs the country as a kind of militocracy.
In a recent analysis of the way Russia is governed, Prof Bettina Renz of King's College London goes against some of this conventional wisdom in the western media and argues that the talk of an overarching elite with a strong military background is exaggerated. She argues that outside of the military and interior ministries of the government there is no clear influence of ex-KGB officers.
"The portrayal of the siloviki as a tool in the hands of a president pursuing a more authoritarian policy direction can at best provide a simplified explanation of events and should not be taken too literally," she concludes, after arguing that these groups were always the backbone of the country's traditional ruling elite.
Although she accepts the tightening of controls on the media cannot be disputed, she argues that "catch-all explanations do injustice to the intricacies of Russian politics".
It seems the most likely standard bearer for the siloviki in the presidential elections will be Sergei Ivanov, who just recently won promotion from defence minister to become a deputy prime minister.
Like Putin, he spent more than 20 years in the KGB, though his public profile was tainted by his failure to fully weed out excesses in the army.
Perceived as his main rival and representing a different faction sometimes known as the "St Petersburg lawyers" is another deputy prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who has positioned himself as a slightly more left-of-centre candidate.
It is believed that if all the EU ambassadors in Moscow could vote, he'd be their man for the top job - which means he probably doesn't stand a chance.
Another group, usually known as "the family" - the coterie which once surrounded former president Boris Yeltsin - has now been dismantled by Putin as an influential group inside the Kremlin hierarchy.
There is also the suspicion that Putin will eventually back someone else entirely, someone more like himself, who acts as a referee between the competing parties of power, such as the head of the Russian railways, Vladimir Yakunin. He is the son of a KGB officer and a close ally of Putin, who would advise him.
Yakunin's succession would probably keep the country on the current path, focusing on economic growth and maintaining order.
But the critics, whether foreign academics or domestic dissidents, like the independent Duma politician Vladimir Ryzhkov, believe it's all just a corrupt charade. They argue that with the country's two main parties both loyal to Putin, the current elite will continue to rule as they please.
The Kremlin has always been an enigmatic centre for Russian politics, whether Ivan the Terrible or Stalin was dictating orders from within.
In the coming year, the truth about Putin's succession will reveal whether the country has firmly embarked on a path away from this harsher past.