In case you were wondering why Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitri S. Peskov suddenly decided to fess up and reveal that Putin’s amphora discovery was a piece of PR theater, Ellen Barry has some suggestions.  It would seem that middle class voters, to whom the Prime Minister is now trying to appeal since reform-happy Medvedev receded into the background, do not go in for that sort of cheap chicanery:

Mr. Peskov’s interview on Dozhd TV, a cheeky Web-based news channel, made this much clear: Mr. Putin is returning to the presidency in a country that has changed greatly since 2008, when he last held that post. After showy efforts to elevate his popularity, he appears to have stopped a slow decline in his approval ratings — now at 68 percent, their lowest point since 2005, according to the Levada Center.

But he has few levers to pull with influential urban elites, who are increasingly immune from the persuasive effects of social programs and government-controlled television.