BORIS YELTSIN's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, has given her father much good advice. Last summer, for example, when she told him he would have a better chance of endearing himself to ordinary Russians if he made his bodyguards remove their sinister black sunglasses, she undoubtedly contributed to his victory in the presidential election.
But the daughter, who claims to bring "common sense" to the rarified world of the Kremlin, might have lost a little of her own intuition by allowing her powerful father to make her an official presidential aide. The communist and nationalist opposition were not slow to cry nepotism after the announcement of the appointment last week.
The raw Boris Yeltsin was charming in his way. When he went to Oslo and committed the gross faux pas of calling the Norwegian queen and prime minister "raspberries and cream" because they were wearing red-and-white dresses, Russians laughed indulgently at the gaucherie of the peasant in court. But he did need someone to smarten up his image and who better than a member of his own family?
Tatyana, a 37-year-old former rocket scientist, took her old dad in hand at just the right moment. In early 1996, his popularity ratings were at rock bottom because of the war in Chechnya. Mr Yeltsin had surrounded himself by a corrupt clique, led by his former chief bodyguard, Alexander Korzhakov, and cut himself off from the people who had followed him when he first launched Russia's democratic reforms. He needed a mirror that would tell him honestly how deformed he had become.
The straight-talking daughter did not confine her advice to tips about sunglasses. Together with Anatoly Chubais, who is now first deputy prime minister in charge of the economy, she masterminded Mr Yeltsin's election campaign, bringing him back in touch with the populace. Like a western politician on the campaign trail, the ageing president not only showed renewed interest in the concerns of voters but swung on a children's swing and disco-danced, antics which would have been beneath the dignity of unelected Soviet leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev.
The plan worked. Mr Yeltsin was returned for a second term against all the odds - but at the cost of his health. Even as he made his political recovery, the first anniversary of which he celebrated last week, his heart trouble came back to plague him and he disappeared from public view.
When Mr Yeltsin was recovering from his heart by-pass operation last November, his daughter acted as a gatekeeper, deciding who should have access to him while he was still weak. One might have expected his wife, Naina, to have the strongest influence over him. But, according to the Russian press, she looks after grandson Gleb - the other Yeltsin grandson, Boris II, is at boarding school in England - while Tatyana is the power behind the throne.
Tatyana it was who persuaded Mr Yeltsin to appoint a cabinet of young economists to press on with (market reforms which had slid off-track. So close is she to Mr. Chubais that the first deputy prime minister has had to deny persistent rumours that they are having an affair. No, they just share a mutual interest in the economy, he says. The revamped cabinet had its first success when all state debts to pensioners were cleared by July 1st.
But Mr Yeltsin might have spoiled his second honeymoon with the electorate by formalising the creative relationship he has with Tatyana. Aware of how Mikhail Gorbachev's stylish wife, Raisa, was criticised by Russians for being too prominent, Tatyana said she was expected to be attacked in her new job, but added that the appointment was necessary.
"There was a certain degree of discomfort when people who worked with the president constantly met the president's daughter," she told NTV, Russia's independent television channel. "It's more comfortable for them to speak to a person with a specific government post."
However, opposition deputies do not agree. With parliament in summer recess, Tatyana may have been spared the colourful wrath of demagogues such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but a question has been raised at the constitutional court, for the Russian constitution forbids nepotism.
Perhaps Mr Yeltsin would have been wiser to keep on taking his daughter's advice in private. Altogether, the tone of celebrations marking the first year of his renewed presidency has been immodest. The first TV channel spoke of "Yeltsin's year of courage". Progress has been made towards correcting Russia's course, but, with doctors and other workers on hunger strike: because they are still waiting for unpaid wages, it is too early to crow - a point Tatyana might have made quietly in her father's ear.