In the fall of 1998, assassins killed Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova in the stairwell of her St. Petersburg apartment; they also shot her aide, Ruslan Linkov, in the head, and left him for dead.


But Linkov survived. And as Linkov lay in his hospital bed, Vladimir Putin sat at his side for more than an hour, holding his hand and reassuring him manfully: "It's all going to be O.K. It's all going to be O.K."


Perhaps it's the war, perhaps it's his tough "strong state" rhetoric, perhaps it's his professional reserve. But whatever the reason, few think of Putin as kind, or generous.


And yet there are nice stories about Putin too.


Linkov is not a Putin political supporter - he is quite sarcastic about the acting president. When Putin was deputy mayor, Nevskoye Vremya reporter Linkov was a gleeful critic of City Hall - to the point that Mayor Anatoly Sobchak once swore furiously at him.


All of which just makes Linkov's description of the head of the Federal Security Service sitting shaken at his bedside all the more poignant.


After Vladimir Yakovlev defeated Sobchak at the polls, much was made of Putin's public shows of loyalty. He resigned in support of the mayor, and refused an offer to join the Yakovlev administration.


What is intriguing, however, is that Putin subsequently and quietly helped the new administration get on its feet. He seems to have done so solely out of generosity and concern for the city.


Igor Artemyev, Yakovlev's vice governor and financial chief, recounts finding the city's finances in a mess. Just days after taking up his job, he called Putin.


Putin knew well the St. Petersburg offices of Dresdner Bank, and he quickly arranged a meeting there to introduce Artemyev.


"He simply said he had known me a long time and that there would be no problems in dealing with me. And in two weeks we got a credit, a five-year loan, to buy some medical equipment," Artemyev said. "It was a small credit but it was very important. I had wanted to be able to say that we had a credit from a solid Western bank, because that is helpful in getting further credits."


Artemyev credits Putin's selfless assistance with helping him to later organize a major Eurobond float (even if these were bonds mostly needed to pay off the excesses of the Sobchak-Putin administration).


"I have trusted Putin," Artemyev said. "I had my own opinions about Sobchak's deputy mayors, and I liked far from all of them, but I liked Putin."


These days, Putin is better known for talk of "wasting them in the toilet." But when he was just a deputy mayor he could be more of an intelligent.


Asked by Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti in May 1995 if he thought Russia was "too oriented" to the West, he replied:


"Russia has always been a sort of barrier between East and West. That's a fact, just as it's a fact that Russia itself is a country where Christianity and Islam have peacefully lived side-by-side for centuries. In this is the enormous advantage, the unique nature of our country. What sense would there be in drawing up an artificial division? It would be nice if Russia could become not a shield or barrier holding back some mythical threat, but instead a connecting link."