Vladimir Putin - The Man Behind the Stern Mask

Vladimir Putin

The Man Behind the Stern Mask

Stes de Necker

Introduction

This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Vladimirovich and the family name is Putin.

Vladimir Putin, born 7 October 1952, has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. He previously served as President from 2000 to 2008, and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. During his last term as Prime Minister, he was also the Chairman of the United Russia political party.

For 16 years Putin served as an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election and was re-elected in 2004. 

Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008. Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election and appointed Putin as Prime Minister, beginning a period of so-called "tan democracy". In September 2011, following a change in the law extending the presidential term from four years to six, Putin announced that he would seek a third, non-consecutive term as President in the2012 presidential election, an announcement which led to large-scale protests in many Russian cities. He won the election in March 2012 and is serving a six-year term.

Many of Putin's actions are regarded by the domestic opposition and foreign observers as undemocratic. 

The 2011 Democracy Index stated that Russia was in "a long process of regression that culminated in a move from a hybrid to an authoritarian regime" in view of Putin's candidacy and flawed parliamentary elections. In 2014 Russia was excluded from the G8 group as a result of its annexation of Crimea.

During Putin's first premiership and presidency (1999–2008), real incomes increased by a factor of 2.5, real wages more than tripled; unemployment and poverty more than halved, and the Russians' self-assessed life satisfaction rose significantly. Putin's first presidency was marked by high economic growth: the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, seeing GDP increase by 72% in PPP (six fold in nominal terms). 

As Russia's president, Putin and the Federal Assembly passed into law a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. As Prime Minister, Putin oversaw large scale military and police reform. His energy policy has affirmed Russia's position as an energy superpower. Putin supported high-tech industries such as the nuclear and defence industries. 

A rise in foreign investment contributed to a boom in such sectors as the automotive industry. 

Putin has cultivated a strongman image and is a pop cultural icon in Russia with many commercial products named after him.

Sport and cultural life

Putin has won international support for sport in Russia. In 2007, he led a successful effort on behalf of Sochi (located along the Black Sea near the border between Georgia and Russia) for the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics, the first Winter Olympic Games to ever be hosted by Russia. 

Likewise, in 2008, the city of Kazan won the bid for the 2013 Summer Universiade, and on 2 December 2010 Russia won the right to host the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup, also for the first time in Russian history. In 2013, Putin stated that gay athletes would not face any discrimination at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. 

Putin has an outdoor, sporty, tough guy image in the media, demonstrating his physical capabilities and taking part in unusual or dangerous acts, such as extreme sports and interaction with wild animals.

For example, in 2007, the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda published a huge photograph of a bare-chested Putin vacationing in the Siberian Mountains under the headline: "Be Like Putin."

Photo ops during his various adventures are part of a public relations approach that, according to Wired, "deliberately cultivates the macho, take-charge superhero image". Some of the activities have been criticised for being staged.

Notable examples of Putin's macho adventures include: flying military jets, demonstrating his martial art skills, riding horses, rafting, fishing and swimming in a cold Siberian river (doing all that mostly bare-chested), descending in a deepwater submersible, tranquilizing tigers with a tranquiliser gun, tranquilizing polar bears, riding a motorbike, co-piloting a fire fighting plane to dump water on a raging fire, shooting darts at whales from a crossbow for eco-tracking, driving a race car, scuba diving at an archaeological site, attempting to lead endangered cranes in a motorized hang glider, and catching big fish.

On 11 December 2010, at a concert organized for a children's charity in Saint Petersburg, Putin sang Blueberry Hill accompanying himself on the piano. The concert was attended by various Hollywood and European stars such as Kevin Costner, Sharon Stone, Alain Delon, and Gérard Depardieu. At the same event (and others) Putin played a patriotic song from his favourite spy movie The Shield and the Sword.

Putin's painting "Узор на заиндевевшем окне" (A Pattern on a Hoarfrost-Encrusted Window), which he had painted during the Christmas Fair on 26 December 2008, became the top lot at the charity auction in Saint Petersburg and sold for 37 million rubles. The creation of the painting coincided with the 2009 Russia–Ukraine gas dispute, which left a number of European states without Russian gas and amid January frosts.

There are a large number of songs about Putin. Some of the more popular include:

[I Want] A Man Like Putin by Singing Together

Horoscope (Putin, Don't Piss!) by Uma2rman

VVP by a Tajik singer Tolibjon Kurbankhanov (Толибджон Курбанханов)

Our Madhouse is Voting for Putin by Working Faculty.

Putin's name and image are widely used in advertisement and product branding. Among the Putin-branded products are Putinkavodka, the PuTin brand of canned food, the Gorbusha Putina caviar and a collection of T-shirts with his image.

Putin features in the colouring book for children Vova and Dima (presented on his 59th birthday), where he and Dmitry Medvedev are drawn as good-behaving little boys, and in the Superputin online comics series, where Putin and Medvedev are portrayed first as superheroes, and then as a troll and an orc in the World of Warcraft.

Vladimir Putin was portrayed by internet personality Nice Peter in his YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, in Season 2's finale episode, "Rasputin vs. Stalin" (aired on 22 April 2013).

A Russian movie called A Kiss not for Press was premiered in 2008 on DVD. The movie is said to be based on biography of Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila. Asserting that the Russian non-systemic opposition work for foreign interests: Come to me, Bandar-logs!

Putin has produced a large number of popular aphorisms and catch-phrases, known as ‘Putinisms’. Many of them were first made during his annual Q&A conferences, where Putin answered questions from journalists and other people in the studio, as well as from Russians throughout the country, who either phoned in or spoke from studios and outdoor sites across Russia. Putin is known for his often tough and sharp language. The examples of most popular ‘Putinisms’ include:

To bump off in a toilet. Made in 1999, when he promised to destroy terrorists wherever they were found, including in toilets.

She sank. Curt and self-evident answer to a question from Larry King in 2000 asking what happened to the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk.

Ploughed like a slave on a galley. This is how Putin described his work as President of Russia from 2000 to 2008 during a Q&A conference in 2008.

Ears of a dead ass. According to Putin, that was what Latvia would receive instead of the land claimed by Latvia in a territorial dispute.

At the very least, a state leader should have a head. Putin's response to Hillary Clinton's claim that Putin has no soul. He recommended that international relations be built without emotion and instead on the basis of the fundamental interests of the states involved.

Shearing a pig- In 2013, Putin responded to complaints that he was harbouring whistleblower Edward Snowden, saying that he does not wish to get involved in this issue because "it's like shearing a pig – lots of screams but little wool".

Personal life - Family

On 28 July 1983 Putin married Kaliningrad-born Lyudmila Shkrebneva, at that time an undergraduate student of the Spanish branch of the philology department of the Leningrad State University and a former Aeroflot flight attendant. They lived together in Germany from 1985 to 1990. During this time, according to BND archives, a German spy befriended Putina, who said that Putin beat her and had love affairs. 

When the couple left Germany in 1990 it was rumoured that Putin left behind an illegitimate child.

Putina was rarely seen with President Putin and there were rumours, according to the Daily Mail and other newspapers, that the couple separated. Putin has been linked by newspapers with other women, including gymnast Alina Kabayeva and ex-spy Anna Chapman. These rumours have been denied. 

Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, announced on 6 June 2013, that their marriage was over, ending years of speculation about their relationship. The Kremlin confirmed on 2 April 2014 that Russian President Vladimir Putin has finalised the divorce from his wife of 30 years Lyudmila following the couple's sudden split in June 2013. The president's spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to state-owned Itar-TASS news agency that "the divorce has completed."

Putin and his wife have two daughters, Mariya Putina (born 28 April 1985 in Leningrad, Soviet Union) and Yekaterina Putina (born 31 August 1986 in Dresden, East Germany). The daughters grew up in East Germany and attended the German School in Moscow until his appointment as Prime Minister. After that they studied international economics at the Finance Academy in Moscow, although it was not officially reported due to security reasons. Official sources such as Pravda claim they started their studies at St Petersburg State University, with Mariya at the biology and geology department and Yekaterina at the oriental studies section of the University's philological department. It is the most prestigious section of the department that graduates future diplomats"  

According to the Daily Mail, their photographs have never been published by the Russian media, and no family portrait has ever been issued. The Sunday Times has published one picture of Mariya with her parents According to an article in the newspaper De Pers, Mariya is married to the Dutchman Jorrit Faassen. Today they live in Voorschoten, Netherlands.

There have been reports that Yekaterina planned to wed the son of a South Korean admiral however the alleged groom denied the rumours in South Korean paper Chosun.

Putin´s own comment in a televised interview is that "both his daughters live in Moscow, where they’re combining their studies with part-time work. “I’m proud of them,” said Putin.

One of Vladimir Putin's relatives is Viktor Medvedchuk – the Ukrainian business oligarch influential until the 2004 Orange Revolution. Putin became the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter Darina in 2004. The two maintain regular relations since, with their meetings sometimes covered by the Russian state-controlled TV channels.

Another relative is Roman Putin, CEO of Putin Consluting a firm aiming to "to facilitate entrance into the Russian market, to minimize the transaction and administrative barriers, and to ensure complex business security"

Personal wealth and residences

Figures released during the legislative election of 2007 put Putin's wealth at approximately 3.7 million rubles ($150,000 USD) in bank accounts, a private 77.4-square-meter (833 sq ft) apartment in Saint Petersburg, 260 shares of Bank Saint Petersburg (with a December 2007 market price $5.36 per share and two 1960s-era Volga M21 cars that he inherited from his father and does not register for on-road use. In 2012 Putin reported an income of 3.6 million rubles ($113,000). This has led opponents, such as politician Boris Nemtsov, to question how Putin can afford certain possessions, such as his 11 luxury watches worth an estimated $700,000.

Putin's purported 2006 income totalled 2 million rubles (approximately $80,000). According to the data Putin did not make it into the 100 wealthiest Duma candidates of his own United Russia party.

Unconfirmed claims by some Russian opposition politicians and journalists allege that Putin secretly possesses a large fortune (as much as $70 billion) via successive ownership of stakes in a number of Russian companies. Nina L. Khrushcheva of the The New School estimates his net worth to be between $40–70 billion. Asked at a press conference on 14 February 2008 whether he was the richest person in Europe, as some newspapers claimed; and if so, to state the source of his wealth, Putin said "This is plain chatter, not worthy discussion, plain bosh. They have picked this in their noses and have smeared this across their pieces of paper. This is how I view this."

Not long after he returned from his KGB service in Dresden, East Germany Putin built a dacha in Solovyovka on the eastern shore of Lake Komsomolskoye on the Karelian Isthmus in Priozersky District of Leningrad Oblast, near St. Petersburg. The dacha had burned down in 1996. Putin built a new one identical to the original and was joined by a group of seven friends who built dachas beside his. In the fall of 1996, the group formally registered their fraternity as co-operative society, calling it Ozero (Lake) and turning it into a gated community.

As President and then Prime-Minister, apart from the Moscow Kremlin and the White House, Putin has used numerous official residences throughout the country. In August 2012 Nemtsov listed 20 villas and palaces, 9 of which were built during Putin's 12 years in power. This compares to the President of the United States' 2 official residences.

Some of the residences include: Gorki-9 near Moscow, Bocharov Ruchey in Sochi, Dolgiye Borodyin Novgorod Oblast, Novo-Ogaryovo in Moscow Oblast and Riviera in Sochi (the latter two were left for Putin when he was Prime-Minister in 2008–2012, others were used by Dmitry Medvedev at that period). Furthermore, a massive Italianate-style mansion costing an alleged USD 1 billion and dubbed "Putin's Palace" is under construction near the Black Sea village of Praskoveevka. The mansion, built on government land and sporting 3 helipads, a private road paid for from state funds and guarded by officials wearing uniforms of the official Kremlin guard service, is said to have been built for Putin's private use. In 2012 Sergei Kolesnikov, a former business associate of Putin's, told the BBC's News night programme, that he had been ordered by deputy prime minister, Igor Sechin, to oversee the building of it.

Languages

Apart from Russian, Putin speaks fluent German. His family used to speak German at home as well. After becoming President he was reported to be taking English lessons and could be seen conversing directly with Bush and native speakers of English in informal situations, but he continues to use interpreters for formal talks. Putin spoke English in public for the first time during the state dinner in Buckingham Palace in 2003 saying but a few phrases while delivering his condolences to Queen Elizabeth II on the death of her mother. In an interview in 2013, the Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov revealed that he and Putin sometimes conversed in Swedish.

Religion

Putin's father was "a model communist, genuinely believing in its ideals while trying to put them into practice in his own life". With this dedication he became secretary of the Party cell in his workshop and then after taking night classes joined the factory's Party bureau. Though his father was a "militant atheist", Putin's mother "was a devoted Orthodox believer". Though she kept no icons at home, she attended church regularly, despite the government's persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church at that time. She ensured that Putin was secretly christened as a baby and she regularly took him to services. His father knew of this but turned a blind eye.

According to Putin's own statements, his religious awakening followed the serious car crash of his wife in 1993, and was deepened by a life-threatening fire that burned down their dacha in August 1996. Right before an official visit to Israel his mother gave him his baptismal cross telling him to get it blessed "I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since." When asked whether he believes in God during his interview with Time, he responded saying: "...There are things I believe, which should not in my position, at least, be shared with the public at large for everybody's consumption because that would look like self-advertising or a political striptease."

Martial arts

One of Putin's favourite sports is the martial art of judo. Putin began training in sambo (a martial art that originated in the Soviet Union) at the age of 14, before switching to judo, which he continues to practice today. Putin won competitions in his hometown of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), including the senior championships of Leningrad in both sambo and judo. He is the President of the Yawara Dojo, the same Saint Petersburg dojo he practiced at when young. Putin co-authored a book on his favourite sport, published in Russian as Judo with Vladimir Putin and in English under the title Judo: History, Theory, Practice (2004).

Though he is not the first world leader to practice judo, Putin is the first leader to move forward into the advanced levels. Currently, Putin holds a 6th dan (red/white belt) and is best known for his Harai Goshi (sweeping hip throw). Putin earned Master of Sports (Soviet and Russian sport title) in judo in 1975 and in sambo in 1973. At a state visit to Japan, Putin was invited to the Kodokan Institute, the judo headquarters, where he showed different judo techniques to the students and Japanese officials.

Putin also holds a 6th dan black belt in Kyokushin kaikan karate. He was presented the black belt in December 2009 by Japanese champion Kyokushin Karate-Do master Hatsuo Royama.

In 2013, Putin re-introduced the GTO physical fitness program to Russia with the support of Steven Seagal.

Other sports

Putin often is seen on outdoor activities with Dmitry Medvedev, promoting sports and healthy way of life among Russians: they were seen alpine skiing in Krasnaya Polyana, playing badminton, cycling and fishing. Putin also started to learn ice skating and playing ice hockey after he promised to do so on a meeting with the Russia men's national junior ice hockey team who had won the2011 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.

Putin also enjoys watching football and supports FC Zenit Saint Petersburg, the main team of his native city.

Pets

Putin owns a female black Labrador Retriever named Koni, given as a gift in 2000 by General of the Army and Russia's Minister of Emergency Situations Sergey Shoigu. Koni is often seen at Putin's side and has been known to accompany him into staff meetings and greet world leaders. In fact, when Putin first met Angela Merkel, he brought Koni along knowing that Merkel had a fear of dogs, having been bitten by one as a child. In 2003 Koni gave birth to eight pups which were later given as presents to Russian citizens, politicians and foreign ambassadors.

Koni gained additional fame in 2004 when the largest Russian publisher of children's books published a book entitled Connie's Stories. In 2008 Koni became the first recipient of a GLONASS-enabled pet collar to highlight the progress of the Russian global navigation satellite system.

In 2010 Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov gave Putin a Karakachan dog who was then named Buffy according to a suggestion by a five-year old boy from Moscow, Dima Sokolov.

Recognition

In September 2006, France's president Jacques Chirac awarded Vladimir Putin the Grand-Croix (Grand Cross) of the Légion d'honneur, the highest French decoration, to celebrate his contribution to the friendship between the two countries. This decoration is usually awarded to the heads of state considered very close to France.

In 2007, Putin was named Time magazine's Person of the Year.

On 12 February 2007 Saudi King Abdullah awarded Putin the King Abdul Aziz Award, Saudi Arabia's top civilian decoration.

On 10 September 2007 UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan awarded Putin the Order of Zayed, the UAE's top civil decoration.

In December 2007 Putin was named Person of the Year by Expert magazine, an influential and respected Russian business weekly.

On 5 October 2008 the central street of Grozny, the capital of Russia's Republic of Chechnya, was renamed from the Victory Avenue to the Vladimir Putin Avenue, as ordered by the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

In February 2011 the parliament of Kyrgyzstan named a peak in Tian Shan mountains Vladimir Putin Peak.

On 15 November 2011 the China International Peace Research Centre awarded the Confucius Peace Prize to Putin, citing as reason Putin's opposition to NATO's Libya bombing in 2011 while also paying tribute to his decision to go to war in Chechnya in 1999. According to the committee, Putin's "Iron hand and toughness revealed in this war impressed the Russians a lot, and he was regarded to be capable of bringing safety and stability to Russia".

In 2011, the University of Belgrade awarded Putin an honorary doctorate.