As Russia holds parliamentary elections that will reaffirm the machinery of Vladimir Putin's enduring authority, quiet speculation turns toward the horizon — toward seven men whose proximity to power, control of institutions, and patronage networks position them as possible inheritors of a system built around one man. Putin, at 74 and more than two decades into his dominion, has amended constitutions and outlasted rivals, yet autocracies carry within them an unspoken question that no election can answer: who holds the center when the center can no longer hold itself? The profiles emerging from