I think it's simpler than that. Putin is a charismatic autocrat in a country whose brightest historic periods were under the control of charismatic autocrats. The way to cement your autocracy is to be autocratic; the way to cement your charisma is to be charismatic. Consider: before Kim Il Sung turned North Korea into The Hermit Kingdom it was just northern Korea. He pushed it to The Darkest Place on Earth through pure cult of personality and kept it there through absolute godlike authority. Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gromyko, Gorbachev. That's 70 years of Soviet rulers and Gromyko, Andropov and Chernenko were only like 6 years of that. Historically speaking, Russia seems to like its Tsars, even if they're "elected."