Of the surveyed, trust in President Medvedev dropped from his record 62 percent to 56, and from 72 to 66 percent for Prime Minister Putin.

According to the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, the drop in ratings elicited shock from the Prime Minister’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, who called it a “paradox.” The administration is considering the fluctuation to be a result of “seasonal factors.”

Possible seasonal factors include a traditional rise in early November of protest activity, as well as rigged elections in October that gave sweeping wins across the country to Prime Minister Putin’s leading United Russia party.

The number of officials in regional bodies more than doubled, growing by 2.25 times, while the number of federal employees rose by 1.6 times.  The number of municipal officials grew by 2.07 times.

The report reveals that as a whole, women outnumber men in the government service.  In the highest managerial positions, the reverse is true, and men outnumber women two to one.  The average Russian civil servant is 40 years old.

Russia’s bureaucrats have a bad name in the country.  With already rampant corruption increasing steadily in recent years, the government is now taking steps to boost their image.

According to a March 12th report in the Vedomosti newspaper, the state is allocating nearly 700 million rubles (€15.3 or $21 million) of the federal budget to raise public trust in the civil service.

The initiative, signed by President Dmitri Medvedev on March 11th, will take steps to raise the index of confidence in state employees.  It also hopes to reduce the percent of bureaucrats who leave the civil service before reaching retirement age by as many as 30 percent.

Medvedev, a lawyer by training, has called for streamlining the civil service and getting rid of ineffective managers.

Initially, some 500 politicians, public figures, spiritual leaders, scientists, artists, writers and other notables were put forward as candidates. Votes were then cast for the top 50 names on the contest’s website. So far, over 2.75 million votes have been recorded, although gauging the actual number of participants is difficult, since users may vote multiple times.

Starting in September, the top 12 “finalists” will be reviewed on the Rossiya channel. A final public vote will then take place in December.

An early lead was taken by Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, with some sources claiming that organized online flash-mobs propelled the communist leaders into the top positions. After two weeks in the lead, Stalin was overtaken by tsar Nikolai II on July 15th, after competing groups staged their own flash-mobs. Musician and actor Vladimir Vysotsky and Peter the Great round off the top five.

The project’s chief executive producer, Alexei Golikov, downplayed the significance of the contest. “This is not a referendum,” he told Interfax, “this is an entertainment project with no political component.”

Still, some groups were anxiously awaiting the results. The St. Petersburg branch of the Communist Party has pledged to appeal to the Moscow Patriarchate and ask the Stalin be canonized, should he take first place in the contest. Sergei Malinkovich, the leader of the branch, spoke with the British Times newspaper:

“If he wins, we will ask the Russian Orthodox Church to consider canonizing Stalin. Lenin was a Communist for the Church, but Stalin was a real national leader. For us, he is like Napoleon is to the French.”

The move may be little more than an empty gesture.  Stalin, who ordered the demolition of hundreds of Orthodox churches, is an unlikely choice for canonization by the Church.

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The contest is co-sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Russian History and the Public Opinion foundation. For more information, visit the competition’s website (Rus).