The end of the Putin Era (?) in posters

The folks at Grani.ru, who brought us the Free Khodorkovsky! poster contest a few years ago, have updated the contest concept for the 2007-08 political season. This time, the theme of the contest is "The End of the Putin Era." The contest asked artists to respond to a few questions:

What awaits the country in 2008? When and how will the ruling regime in Russia change? What are the results of Putin's rule? Where will the new leaders take Russia?

I've decided to post a few of these posters here and will even attempt (no doubt futilely, in some cases) to explain the humor or multiple meanings behind some of them.

First, a few of my favorites:

This one I love because it's a photo that anyone in Moscow could have taken - a photo of
an ad for Putinka vodka's toast hotline underneath the sign for the Lubyanka metro station.

This one positions a glass in front of a bunch of bottles of
Putinka in such a way that letters spelling "Kaput" are hightlighted.

Self-explanatory.

This one I liked because it represents the role of broadcast media in inflating
the popularity ratings or visibility of various public figures in Russia (the 1 on the
pump is the logo of the state-run Channel 1 network, also known as ORT).

Represented are Putin, Ivanov and Medvedev, and also, among others, Ksenia Sobchak
(who's sort of like Russia's answer to Paris Hilton) and ORT political commentator
Mikhail Leont'ev, who was already delivering blisteringly anti-American monologues a
few years ago, so I can only imagine what he's progressed to lately.

"A king is made by his retinue," reads the poster, which has the king surrounded by
sixes ("шестёрки") of various suits. In Russian slang, to be someone's "шестёрка"
means to be their "flunky" or "gofer" (according to Multitran), but to give the word its
proper prison slang meaning (since VVP likes to throw around a bit of prison slang
himself now and again), it's best translated in this context as being someone's bitch.

A number of the posters dealt with the possibility that Putin might stay in power or continue to run things from behind the scenes, and with the Russian electorate's lack of choices:

This is another great play on an image from pop-culture: "лохотрон" means any kind
of a scam designed to ensnare suckers or "лохи." The smaller text reads "the future does
not depend on you." The reference is to an ad campaign by mobile telephony provider
Megafon, which had the tag line "the future depends on you." Megafon was originally a
St. Petersburg-based company (Northwest GSM) which exploded onto the national scene
in the early years of Putin's rule, allegedly thanks to help from Putins telecoms minister
Leonid Reiman, who supposedly has an interest in the company.

The lenses of the glasses read "the end of the Putin era," and the
text below reads "visible only through rose-colored glasses."

Pretty much self-explanatory; the small print
reads, "I'll make you an offer you can't refuse..."

The hand is making the "fig," a hand gesture sort of (though not entirely) like giving
someone the finger in the US. The gesture can be used in Russia to signify refusal
when asked to do something, as if to say, "like hell I will." The creative tilting of
the 8 in 2008 to make the infinity symbol suggests who is telling whom to go нафиг.

Another frequently recurring theme in the posters submitted for the contest was Russia's oil wealth, and all of its consequences - from international braggadocio to domestic dependency to good old-fashioned class struggle:

Self-explanatory.

"We are sitting well!"
This expression can mean "everyone's having a good time" when used in the
context of a social gathering; but "to sit on the needle" or "become seated on the
needle" is Russian slang for becoming hooked on intravenous drugs.

"The Chekists are on duty until the last drop..."

This one may be my very favorite, because it incorporates themes of both oil
wealth and the power of the broadcast media. The figure with its feet propped
up on the barrel of oil is labeled "the authorities" (власть can be a difficult word to
translate), and the submissive figure watching TV is labeled "the people."
The caption below reads "an earth-shaking (or 'epochal') age."