With West-leaning liberal Viktor Yushchenko poised to take power in Ukraine in the second bloodless revolution in the region in a year, rulers in other old Soviet states are reluctantly wondering - are they next? The answer to that question seems to be "No ... at least, not yet." Even in Russia, the Ukrainian revolution has caused discomfort. President Vladimir Putin openly backed Yushchenko's defeated rival, then kept a frosty silence for a month before congratulating the winner on Thursday.
In a bid to head off any chance of Ukraine-style upheaval, some ex-Soviet states such as Belarus and Uzbekistan are tightening the screws against dissent.
In Kazakhstan, one opposition party has been banned and the other main opposition party expects to be closed down soon. Political reform is being shelved. And in Kyrgyzstan, where elections are due this year, a jittery leadership is taking steps to restrict street protests.
The fact that the region's leaders - most of whom come from the old communist political culture - are even addressing the possibility after successive revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine means nothing is going to be quite the same again.
In Russia, where Putin is still popular despite unrest over changes to social benefits, living standards are on the rise and there is an absence of any real opposition, no-one foresees a revolution.
But from the Kremlin's standpoint, the Yushchenko phenomenon poses some big questions for the future. The Putin leadership will be monitoring Yushchenko's pledges to maintain close ties with Moscow.
Rigged elections were the catalyst in both Georgia's "rose revolution" at the end of 2003 and Ukraine's "orange" one.
This reality is not lost on leaders in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) since virtually every election that has taken place there has been denounced as flawed by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
But the Georgian and Ukrainian revolutions required other ingredients too - not least a population ready to take to the streets and a political figure to lead them.
In most CIS members, including the five states of ex-Soviet Central Asia, there is no obvious candidate to challenge the establishment as Yushchenko did, and opposition leaders have frequently been sent to jail or exiled.
But attention is focusing on hard-line Belarus and its pro-Moscow president, Alexander Lukashenko.
Like Ukraine, and unlike Central Asia, Belarus has a border with new European Union territory. It is exposed to Western influences despite isolation from the European mainstream.
Lukashenko, leader since 1994 and accused in the West of hanging onto power through fraudulent polls, has ordered security forces to fight any attempts at destabilisation.
"There will be tightening of Belarussian domestic policy which will be followed by increasing isolation of Belarus from the rest of the world," Viktor Ivashkevich, deputy leader of the opposition party, Belarussian People Front, told Reuters.
In Central Asian republics, most of which operate one-man-rule political systems, authorities also seem to be opting for repression rather than reform.
Observers see Soviet-style moves to limit contacts with foreigners.
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