By James Kilner NALCHIK, Russia, Nov 27 (Reuters) - The shiny refrigerators and mobile phones on sale in this town in Russia's North Caucasus suggest President Vladimir Putin has made good on his promise to restore normal life to this violent region. Putin won early popularity in the Russian heartland in 1999 when as prime minister he sent troops into nearby Chechnya to crush a rebellion. Sunday's parliamentary polls will allow Putin to gauge the extent of his reach now in Russia's unruly fringes. Guerrilla attacks persists, but have eased since the Beslan school siege, when over 300 -- a half of them children -- were killed. Militant violence has hardly featured in campaigning. The new M.video home electronics store in Nalchik, a town of some 300,000 and capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria region, testifies to improved security in North Caucasus under Putin. "It's great they have now opened in Nalchik," said Raya, a 48-year-old shopper. She inspected a German-made fruit press in the shop, part of a nationwide chain. "Things are definitely getting better here," she said. "Slowly getting better." But hours after Raya's shopping trip, a nail bomb killed at least five people on a bus on Karadino-Balkaria's border -- a reminder that the violence is still never far away. Sporadic fighting continues to blight the North Caucasus: gunmen kill policemen almost daily, kidnappers abduct civilians, and bombers target buses. Crucially though for Putin, the militants no longer target civilians in the Russian heartland and the Kremlin can point to a Chechnya now broadly calm and run by a Putin loyalist. "For most people, it's not important what is happening in the North Caucasus, unless things get out of hand," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defence analyst. "It's very important to Putin to be able to show that the North Caucasus are calm and terrorism has been conquered." The parliamentary elections are seen as a test of Putin's authority both in the heartland and in such border areas as the Caucasus. A strong result, almost guaranteed, would allow him to keep a hold on power after stepping down as president next year. IMPROVING SECURITY Thousands died in two wars between Moscow and rebels seeking an independent Chechnya. The rebels took their war deep into Russia, while in Chechnya thousands died in fighting and attacks on civilians, culminating in the Beslan siege. A combination of improved security measures, weakened rebel forces and the diversion of foreign Islamist extremists to Iraq and Afghanistan has constrained the violence. Even in Chechnya, devastated by the fighting, people credit Putin with helping restore order. Many say they will back his United Russia party on Sunday. "A vote for Putin is a vote to guarantee peace and stability," Valid Eskirkhanov, 42, said in the Chechen town of Argun. But while Chechnya is rebuilt and the fighting there has subsided, the neighbouring provinces of Dagestan and Ingushetia are volatile because of a potent mix of Islamist rebels, organised crime groups and renegade security forces. A week before the election, gunmen killed an opposition party candidate in Dagestan, and police beat and detained hundreds in Ingushetia demonstrating against worsening security. Not that many people in Russia will have noticed. The main television stations, which toe the Kremlin line, prefer to focus on good news stories, while independent journalists find it difficult to report from the region. A Russian rights activist said he and a television crew were beaten by security agents last weekend in Ingushetia. The electronics chain that opened the new store in Nalchik believes things are better: people have more money and they can travel more safely to shop. "Three years ago the market would not have been big enough," said Mikhail Kuchment, M.video's commercial director. (Editing by Ralph Boulton)
