Five Things You Didn’t Know About Vladimir Putin
This Russian President used to hunt rats as a child.
Russian President Vladimir Putin got mad for power as the world witnessed him declaring war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. It is happening in a time when the whole world is busy fighting against a deadly pandemic and trying to merely survive. And war this time (or another) means no good for anyone.
War means destruction. War means killing the people you don’t know. War means destroying everything in a second that took years or decades to build.
And no sane human being wants that. But Putin does, and he is the uncontested ruler in his kingdom Russia.
Anyway, in this post, we will talk about a few things about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, most probably, you didn’t know before.
Putin used to hunt rats as a child
Putin was born on October 7, 1952, in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia). His father Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin was a conscript in the Soviet Navy while his mother was a factory worker.
Putin was the youngest and only surviving one amongst the three children. He grew up in a small communal apartment in Leningrad where, in his early years, he used to hunt rats in the hallways and stairwell. It was one of his pastimes.
Putin’s parents had a tough time in those post-WWII days as they had no bathtub or hot water. Even their toilet sat next to a dangerously dilapidated stairwell riddled with holes.
In his book “First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait,” Putin wrote, “There were hordes of rats in the front entryway. My friends and I used to chase them around with sticks.”
Recalling those old memories, he mentioned, — “Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove it into a corner. It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me. I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was chasing me. Luckily, I was a little faster and I managed to slam the door shut in its nose.”
This childhood memory never left this Russian President as he learned a great lesson from it. In his own words — “There, on that stair landing, I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the word cornered.”
He has a black belt in Judo
Putin loves to show his manliness. You’ve probably seen various photos expressing his masculinity through his great sense of fashion and style.
His shirtless photos are all over the internet. And to defend those, he famously said — “I see no need to hide behind the bushes.”
But from where did all of those come?
When Putin was only 12 years old, he realized that he was not growing as fast as other kids of his age. He was always the skinny and tiny one. So, Putin decided to compensate for that by learning Judo and Sambo. And the reason was that he didn’t want to be bullied by other kids just because of his short stature.
His desire to be the strongest among others led him to eventually earn a black belt in Judo. Not only that, but Putin is also skilled in other wrestling forms like Greek, Roman, and freestyle wrestling. However, he co-authored a book on Martial Arts in 2008.
Even now, being the President of the world’s biggest country, he is often found showing off martial arts skills in wrestling bouts with members of Russia’s national teams.
Putin was a KGB agent for 15 years
From 1975 to 1990, Vladimir Putin served as a foreign intelligence for KGB (Committee for State Security), one of the world’s best intelligence agencies. And he worked six years ( 1985–1990) in Dresden, East Germany, under the disguised identity as a translator.
Thanks to his KGB life, Putin developed a unique style of walking. While walking, Putin always keeps his right hand steady on the side while his left-hand swings a lot. This distinct walking is named Gunslinger’s gait, and it helps agents reach their firearms quickly in any emergencies.
After the collapse of the Communist East German government, Putin retired from KGB in 1990 with the rank of lieutenant colonel and returned to Russia to join the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University.
There Putin developed a good relationship with Anatoly Sobchak. And when Sobchak became the first democratically elected mayor of Leningrad on 12 June 1991, Putin became his advisor.
Very quickly, Putin won Sobchak’s heart and had risen to the post of first deputy mayor by 1994.
Putin is always late to attend meetings (even with influential world leaders)
Putin has a bad reputation to keep people waiting for him. It’s one of his ways to show others that he doesn’t care about anyone or value their time.
- In 2003, Putin was 14 minutes late for Queen Elizabeth.
- Putin kept John Kerry waiting for three hours in Moscow in 2012.
- In the same year, he was 40 minutes late for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
- In 2013, he was nearly an hour late for his first meeting with Pope Francis.
- Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, however, was once kept waiting for 4 hours.
The list goes on and on.
“His lateness varies from leader to leader, and in Putin’s terms, an hour’s wait is a sign of respect,” — writes The Guardian.
And this is what Putin’s former wife Lyudmila Putina once said about his lateness in the days of their first dates —
“I was never late, but Vladimir Vladimirovich always was. An hour and a half was normal. I remember standing around in the metro. The first 15 minutes of lateness are OK, half an hour also fine. But when an hour goes by and he’s still not there, you start crying.”
In 2007, Putin was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year”
It can be very shocking to your ears now, but Vladimir Putin was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2007. And you know what the Managing Editor of the Time Magazine, Richard Stengel, said about it.
He said — “He’s not a good guy, but he’s done extraordinary things.”
He further explained, “He’s a new tsar of Russia and he’s dangerous in the sense that he doesn’t care about civil liberties; he doesn’t care about free speech; he cares about stability. But stability is what Russia needed and that’s why Russians adore him.”
Whether you like it or not — Russian President Vladimir Putin is both an extremely powerful and controversial leader of this modern time.
He is straightforward, power-hungry, and strict. And no doubt, his life is insanely eventful and interesting.
“I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy,” said President George W. Bush in 2001 after meeting Putin for the very first time.
Thank you for reading.
Sources: Express, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Reuters, Wikimedia Commons, etc.
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