RUSSIA: Russian children enjoy a good fairy tale. Generations of them have drifted off to Goodnight, Little Ones, featuring the televised antics of Khrusha and Stepasha, a puppet pig and rabbit who learn a simple moral every evening.
The show still airs every night, but the 40-year-old animals are struggling to entrance Russia's Gameboy generation.
Goodnight, Little Ones may have tradition and the nostalgia of parents behind it, but it faces a new and formidable enemy.
In recent months, this rival for the bedtime affections of Russia's youth has slain a giant octopus and defeated a malevolent Jack Frost. He has also beaten the hell out of a corrupt government minister.
Our hero wears a tie beneath his judo costume, and his hair is impeccably parted. His weapons of choice are judo and the Russian constitution, and he lives beneath the Kremlin's dreaming cupolas. Welcome, children, to Fairy Tales of the President.
Vladimir Putin, a diminutive man with a ready scowl, seems an unlikely subject for tales of derring-do. Even most of his old colleagues in the KGB seem to struggle to remember what he ever did, though acolytes hail this as proof of his mastery of the world of espionage.
His adventures feature in Once upon a Time, a children's monthly magazine full of colourful stories and, some say, bite-sized portions of Kremlin propaganda.
There is nothing low-key about the Fairy Tales of the President. After a few blows from Mr Putin, a dragon spews up the squealing German, British and American leaders that he had previously swallowed with impunity.
The tamed beast now "works for our border guards", young Russians are told. "He flies over the frontier, and doesn't let anyone in without permission!"
In another story, when the King of the Sea offers him an underwater fiefdom, riches beyond compare and a beautiful princess, Mr Putin tells the brokenhearted maiden: "I already have a wife, Lyudmila the Lovely, and a kingdom-state called the Russian Federation."
Occasionally a sliver of something resembling reality pierces through. Mr Putin (51) can do judo and he is married to Lyudmila, a former Aeroflot flight attendant. And you can't help feeling that the advice of his cartoon double should be heeded, especially by those with something to fear from a crackdown on corruption currently sending a shiver through the country's tycoons.
After roundly thrashing Jack Frost for holding Russia to ransom, Mr Putin tells him: "It's your own fault! You need to know when to stop and back off in time, according to the strict laws of nature and our constitution!"
Many say that if tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky had known when to stop criticising Mr Putin, funding opposition parties and trying to sell his huge Yukos oil firm to the Americans, he could have avoided charges of tax evasion and fraud and seeing Yukos ravaged by unusually eager prosecutors.
Most Russians like Mr Putin for promising a "dictatorship of the law" when he became President in 2000, and are not troubled by the fall of a man who made billions while they suffered during the economic chaos of the 1990s.
Mr Putin has also gone cyber in his search for young fans. On the new Kremlin website www.uznai-prezidenta.ru, three virtual children guide visitors through the halls of power and spend a little quality time with Mr Putin.
The Putin personality cult shows no sign of abating, and relief doesn't reside in turning off your television or computer: in Russia's markets, even furry toys sing a paean to the President.
With an approval rating of around 70 per cent, he is a certainty for re-election in March, helped by some opponents declaring that even they want him to win.