Russia's economy, heading into its first recession in a decade, could grow again next year, and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin predicted a longer crisis because he is stressed, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said late Wednesday.

"In 2010, the rise should resume," Putin told workers at a rail car factory in the town of Tver. "Alexei Leonidovich [Kudrin] is in a certain state of stress because he is under a lot of pressure and on the defensive. But I don't think we will be under this kind of pressure for the next 20 years."

Kudrin, a relative pessimist in the government, on Tuesday said the government's forecast of a 2.2 percent contraction in the economy this year was "optimistic."

Kudrin warned that the oil-rich country should not expect a return of the kind of favorable conditions it had enjoyed in recent years for the next "five, 10, 20 or 50 years."