This article investigates types of influence that the democratic opposition in contemporary illiberal democracies is able to exercise. The example of Russian democratic opposition demonstrates that exercising a hybrid type of influence, characterised by ideological syncretism and flexible adjustment to circumstances in undertaking social, political or educative activities, is the only strategy allowing both relatively effective communication with the audience and institutional survival. Contemporary democrats have to face not only autocratic governments and growingly isolationist societies, but also a global crisis of western liberal democracies and an increasing anti liberal “Zeitgeist”.