What replaced communist tyranny in russia and central asia?

After the fall of communism, Russia became a democracy, at least on paper, and the same case is with Central Asia, and again, at least on paper. While these countries declare themselves as democratic ones, that is not the case in practice. Russia did tried some version of democracy, but it didn't seemed to work and actually caused more of a mess in the country. Putin used that, got to power, and ever since then he is either the president or shadow president of the country, being a modern day version of a softer dictator. Central Asia on the other hand, pretty much continued the same way, just that it is more of a nationalistic dictatorship instead of communist one. The leaders of these countries tend to be absolute leaders, often being very cruel and restrictive, holding their countries in their palm.