President Vladimir Putin, close in age to Boris Yeltsin's daughters, has proposed as prime minister a man from the same generation – 42-year-old Mikhail Kasyanov.

There is, it seems, nothing new in this. His generation has been leading reforms for eight years now. But Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Sergei Kiriyenko and Boris Nemtsov, the big names among the reformist politicians, were called to power only in the most critical moments. Like political kamikazes, they were sent to pull off the near-impossible and were removed at the first sign of failure.

The real bosses remained those who, like Yeltsin himself, had entered the upper circles of power back in Soviet times. Many of them, former Yeltsin sidekicks from the Urals like Oleg Lobov, or security men like Alexander Korzhakov, weren't able to adjust to the new era.

But they were still closer to Yeltsin than the young reformers, and before having to leave the stage, they had time to pull him into their schemes, with all the consequences that entailed. Only the most pragmatic and teachable of the old school of politicians, like Viktor Chernomyrdin, managed to adjust and pursue market and democratic reform. But only after costly experiments and mistakes.

Despite Yeltsin's hostility to the Communists and their inheritance, it is only now, with his departure, that Russia has finally parted ways with its Soviet leaders. Now, the 40-somethings can really rule the country. And it's no coincidence that Putin's closest economic advisors, Alexei Kudrin and Andrei Illarionov, are from Gaidar's and Chubais' first team.

This means that, on the political level at least, the country no longer has to deal with elementary failure to even grasp what a market economy is all about. Over the last decade, this caused more problems in Russia than is commonly thought. Even more progressive politicians like Yevgeny Primakov and Yury Luzhkov ran up against it; not to speak of the opposition camp. Today, the problem is not one of understanding reform, but of determination to bring it about.

Everyone sees that taxes need to come down and that social costs are too high. But the temptation is huge to put off all these tough decisions, reasoning that things are going well now and hopefully won't get worse in the future.

The day Kasyanov was proposed as prime minister, the Fitch IBCA credit rating agency raised Russia's rating by two points at once. The same day, the Financial Times, which had published some damning reports on the state of affairs in Russia, put out an eight-page supplement on the economic wonders going on here.

There are reasons enough for this – the 7-point GDP growth in the first quarter compared to last year, is a record result not just for the reform years, but for the last 30 years. Even more impressive are foreign debt payments, which should reach $5 billion for the first semester – with no money coming in from the International Monetary Fund, and without the government borrowing from the Central Bank, though the budget allows it.

Gold reserves increased by $5 billion over four months. Inflation is forecast to drop to 5 percent over five months (last year it was 8 percent for January alone). Wage debts decreased by $2 billion over six months. And last autumn, real incomes began to rise for the first time in three years.

This list of good economic news could go on. And it can't all be explained by high oil prices – the economy is obviously benefiting from some other resource as well. This resource, it seems, is the long-awaited recovery in the real sector of the economy. This is the result of the reforms of the last eight years, half-baked reforms as they might have been. But if this is so, then maybe the government doesn't need to give anything a shakeup now? Wouldn't it be safer to just go with the flow?

Economists know that you can't just go with the flow. A worn-out capital base, obsolete technology and poverty are all problems too serious to solve without taking reforms to their conclusion.

Russia's new rulers surpass the Yeltsin of 1991 in their understanding of how a market economy works, and this will certainly help them. It remains to be seen whether they can compare with Yeltsin in terms of political will.