From the perspective of a Czech (which is in the mail - sorry - not):

http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/07/no-obama-madness-in-russia.html

To quote:

"Well, virtually all the Russians are much less thrilled than I am. While I am more familiar with the Western approach, yes, I do consider the Russian attitude much more rational and clever. He's just another politician and his main virtues that are behind the unusually positive receptions elsewhere are those old, well-known superficial features that are useful for someone to manipulate the people who want to be manipulated by such superficial things - but not too useful for other things. It's as simple as that."

But they loved Bush 41, so go figure. And Bush 43 looked into Putin's eyes and knew
what was in his heart.