In keeping with a growing trend, one recent contest initiated by a presidential representative in Putin's home town of St. Petersburg had thousands of teenagers writing essays detailing their love for the president.
The essays - the best of which were published in a special book titled "Dialogue With the President" - included impassioned appeals like "Our fate is in your hands, Vladimir Vladimirovich!" "Everything depends on you!" or "God alone is above you."
As in the Soviet times, which none of them is old enough to remember, the young authors thanked Putin "for taking charge of our great country" and voiced pride in their "young, intelligent and sportsmanlike" leader.
The pop group Bely Oryol has already soared to the top of musical charts with a song that names Putin in a list of things most sacred to Russian hearts - like the hard-earned glory of World War II.
"Soldiers, fire! We defend Putin and Stalingrad," echoes the song, fashioned to resemble the old Soviet anthem, which has been reintroduced to Russia with new words under Putin's leadership.
"Such actions, which risk creating a neo-personality cult for Putin, make me nervous," admits Viktor Rezunkov, chief of the local Radio Liberty Free Europe office.
He points to the local branch of the pro-Kremlin Unity Party, which went to elementary schools to hand out a book replete with pictures and stories from Putin's life - similar to old textbooks about Soviet founder Lenin.
In it, children learn that their "fearless" president "flies a plane, skis down mountains and goes to conflict zones" to put a stop to hostilities.
Though it makes no mention of Putin's work in the feared KGB, it does remember how "he would always come back home because he loved his family and his friends.
"And then he had so many friends all over Russia that they elected him president," the textbook reads.
"All these actions display the Soviet mentality of local functionaries who only want to please the president but do not realize how ridiculous this is," said Leonid Kesselman of St. Petersburg's Center of Sociological Studies.
"I hope that young people are already too smart to take all this seriously," he added.
However, even though "a personality cult like that of Stalin is fortunately impossible today, all this praise and no criticism make me nervous," said Kesselman.
Much of the worry is sparked by suspicions that it might not just be outdated flattery by nostalgic functionaries.
"Obviously one cannot say that the president personally inspires all this, but it does reflect Putin's general image that presents him as an ideal, above all criticism," the analyst warned.
Kremlin officials have publicly criticized the gushing devotion now being lavished on Putin, suggesting that this could in the end hurt the president's image among more liberal voters.
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