Basing on the last reforms and initiatives, as the restoration of the elections of the regional governors, this paper will assess how/if increasing inequality is affecting the reforms of the vertical of power in Putin’s Russia. Despite its continuity, the vertical model of power pursued by Putin is still in making and prone to changes and reforms. While the leading elites want to make the system more performing, opposition forces and part of the public opinion want to make it more democratic. In literature inequality is widely discussed as a possible factor of political change. Is that true in the Russian case? How far is inequality influencing the people evaluation of the vertical model? How is the political elite approaching the issue of inequality? The aim of the paper is to shed light on the connections among inequality, the reforms concerning the centre-regions relations, and the requests for democratic change.
