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The Kremlin-backed United Russia party on 14 April endorsed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for president in 2012 elections, in a blow to incumbent Dmitry Medvedev.
Yuri Shuvalov, vice chief of the party council, said Putin was United Russia’s favorite for the job, according to comments reported by Interfax. Putin was president until 2008, when he stepped down to run as prime minister because he had already served the two consecutive terms allowed by the constitution.
But he continues to poll better than Medvedev and would be allowed to return to the job in 2012, if elected.
Party members have said that Medvedev would only have a shot at a second term if Putin announced that he would sit out the vote. Neither has ruled out running in the race.
To date, both have said they want to reach an agreement between the two of them as to who will run, because they do not want to compete against one another.
Its obvious Central Asian origin[citation needed] has led some[who?] modern scholars to view the crown as a gift from Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde to his brother-in-law, Ivan Kalita of Moscow during the period of the Tatar yoke in Russia[1]. Boris Uspensky, in particular, argues that the Tatar headgear was originally used in coronation ceremonies to signify the Muscovite ruler's subordination to the khan.[2] At some point in the 15th or 16th century the crown was surmounted by a cross.
After Russia overcame the period of feudal fragmentation and Ivan III of Moscow and Vladimir asserted his position as successor to the Roman emperors, there arose a legend that the cap had been presented by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus to his grandson Vladimir Monomakh, the founder of the city of Vladimir and patrilineal ancestor of Ivan III. The legend served as one of the grounds for the "Moscow as the Third Rome" political theory. Accordingly, the crown became known as "Monomakh's Cap", the term first recorded in a Russian document from 1518.