You may not know all about the Russian leader
President Vladimir Putin is a shining star of Russian politics since 1999, but information about his personal life are often shrouded in mystery.
- Did you know that Times magazine named Putin as Person of the Year in 2007 and Forbes ranked him the world’s most powerful man from 2013 to 2016?
- The leader has two daughters — Yekaterina and Mariya Putina — with his former wife Lyudmila Putina. Very little is known about the daughters as Putin fiercely guards their privacy.
- Putin’s childhood years were spent in a communal apartment with three families in St Petersburg, which he remembers spending hunting rats in the stairwell. According to many reports, Putin’s grandfather worked as a chef at Lenin’s country house and later cooked for Stalin several times.
- A black belt in judo, Putin started training in sambo when he was a teenager, then switched to judo. There is a webcomic — SuperPutin— based on him now which depict him as a superhero fighting dark zombie-like opposition forces.
- Putin joined the KGB (the Committee for State Security) straight out of university. For 16 years he worked as an officer and helped the Soviet secret police recruit people to spy on the West. In 1991, he resigned as Lieutenant Colonel.
- Putin is claimed to be so good at fishing that in 2013 he managed to catch a 46-pound pike in Siberia, making it one of the biggest catches in world.
- There is not much clarity on the wealth of Putin although sources claim that the leader has fortune worth over $40bn.
Leave a Comment