UPDATE 1-Russia may take stakes in big companies, Putin says

(Adds Putin comments on state taking stakes)

By Denis Dyomkin and Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the state could take stakes in major Russian companies to help them survive the global economic crisis.

The crisis has hammered confidence in Russian stocks, bonds and the rouble and the Kremlin is trying to prevent the turmoil from stalling the longest Russian economic boom in a generation.

Russia has pledged more than $200 billion in bail-out money, some of it to help Russia's richest businessmen restructure billions of dollars in foreign debts.

In a question-and-answer session with Russian citizens, broadcast by state television, former Kremlin chief Putin said the state was looking at different ways to help the economy get through the crisis.

"Other instruments, for example, include the direct entrance of the state into the capital of big companies, where it will be advantageous for the state, and that means also for the taxpayer, and also in those enterprises that are fundamental for the economy of the whole Russia Federation," Putin said.

"We do not exclude that these instruments could be used in a rather large-scale way," Putin said.

Some analysts have said the state could seek to boost its role in the economy -- whose GDP grew to $1.3 trillion in 2007 -- by buying stakes in key companies at distressed prices.

That would mark a break with the 1990s when a small group of businessmen, who later became known as oligarchs, built giant fortunes by buying valuable raw materials companies from a near bankrupt state under former President Boris Yeltsin.

TALKS WITH BUSINESS

When asked by reporters about the plans after the question and answer session, Putin said the idea of taking major stakes in key companies was being discussed with business,

"The representatives and heads of major companies and their owners themselves considered it both possible and correct for the state -- as a measure to get out of the existing difficult situation -- to look at the possibility of entering the capital of these companies," Putin said.

"I told them straight away that this will not be a transfer to the state of the Russian economy; this will be a way to make it healthy in the conditions of the world financial crisis," Putin said.

Putin's legacy, after eight years as president, has been put on the line by the crisis as it threatens a ten-year boom that helped boost millions of Russians' living standards and which the former KGB spy said was one of his biggest achievements.

Unemployment is rising and economists warn that economic growth could contract next year for the first time in a decade, after prices for Russia's main exports -- oil, gas and metals -- tumbled.

Putin, 56, said the state was ready to take stakes in key companies but that it would have to be on fair terms.

"We are ready, at the request of companies, to look at the possibility of entering into their capital on fair terms. Not to buy cheaply today to sell expensively tomorrow. But these fair conditions must be defined together with representatives of the business community," he said.

He did not name any of the companies. (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge)