Bribes Part of Everyday Life in Putin's Russia Natalya Veselova has spent more than a year trying to get a Russian driver's license. What should have been a simple process has turned into a frustrating ordeal. The apparent reason? She refuses to bribe the Moscow police officers who administer the exam. "They are doing their best to push people to pay bribes for licenses," said Veselova, the 33-year-old mother of a toddler, who has now failed the driving test seven times. Many others in her position give in and pay the expected bribe, typically the equivalent of several hundred dollars (euros). Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, corruption has penetrated deep into the fabric of everyday Russian life. Ordinary people find themselves giving money to police officers as well as doctors, teachers and government officials just for basic public services. Resentment over this pervasive graft has helped fuel the protest movement against Putin, now Russia's prime minister, as he seeks to regain the presidency in a March 4 election. The huge demonstrations in Moscow in recent months were set off by a December parliamentary election won by Putin's party through apparent fraud, but the outrage tapped into far deeper anger over the corruption and cronyism that Putin has fostered. Corruption was a problem in Soviet times and under Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin. What has changed under Putin, experts say, has been the sheer amount of bribes paid to officials, which has skyrocketed along with incomes in Russia. Graft also has become more institutionalized under Putin: Bosses tend not to punish their employees for taking bribes, but rather demand a share. Observers say the Kremlin has tolerated the wrongdoing because it's the main source of income for millions of bureaucrats whose support is crucial to Putin. The extent of corruption in Russia is reflected in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, where Russia is ranked 143rd out of 183 countries. The corruption largely involves big business and government: Kickbacks are standard for many contracts; corrupt judges can be used to destroy or take over the business of a competitor; while friends and relatives of government officials are among the wealthiest people in the country. But much of it is part of normal life. Russians routinely pay to get a child into a school or receive medical treatment, even though both education and health care are supposed to be free. One study estimates that Russia's 143 million people paid about 164 billion rubles ($5 billion) in "everyday" bribes in 2010. Half of Moscow residents and nearly 40 percent of all Russians have been in a situation where they felt a bribe was necessary to solve their problems, according to the joint research conducted last year by the Public Opinion Foundation and the Indem Foundation, which studies corruption. The size of the average bribe has doubled over the past five years to 5,290 rubles ($178), said the study by the independent Russian research centers. "Citizens are not actually rushing to pay bribes," said Elena Panfilova, director of Transparency International in Russia. They pay when they're being cornered into a situation where they have no choice. Many of the bribes go to Russia's traffic police, who among other things administer the driving exams.