Happy Birthday, Mr. President: Putin's 60th - Wall Street Journal [getdailynow.blogspot.com]
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By GREGORY L. WHITE
MOSCOWâ€"President Vladimir Putin marked his 60th birthday by granting reporters from Russia's NTV network what was billed as an unprecedented inside look at his presidential routine.
The hourlong prime-time report, which aired on the president's birthday Sunday, portrayed a modest lifestyle of daily workouts, plain food and workdays that stretched past midnight. The only family member shown was his beloved Labrador, Kony.
"We were the first mere mortals to see these things," reporter Vadim Takmenyov declared breathlessly in the TV special as he stepped into Mr. Putin's office. "We asked the questions that many thought were too scary to ask." Mr. Putin answered them between laps in the pool, from the back seat of his limousine and in his presidential plane.
A departure from the traditional set-piece media events that have become a staple of Mr. Putin's 12-year rule, the report aired on a weekly magazine show that opened with rock music, flashing lights and dancers. It appeared to be an effort to reach out to the young, urban Russians who made up a large part of the tens of thousands who took to the streets last winter to protest against Mr. Putin's monopoly on power.
Mr. Putin, who in May started a new six-year term as president, in the interview vowed he won't cling to power. But he gave no ground to rising dissent, dismissing his opponents as unrepresentative of the ordinary "Russian people" he said overwhelmingly support him.
While protests have faded, polls show support for the president has slipped from the peaks seen when Mr. Putin won more than 60% of the vote in March. Slowing economic growth and rising inflation are fueling discontent. In recent months, the Kremlin has cracked down on critics, jailing opponents and imposing new restrictions on protests and civic groups.
Mr. Putin said he follows his poll numbers, but that he is guided mainly by "the feeling of the rightness of what I'm doing." He said the "overwhelming majority" of Russians support him.
Mr. Putin's spokesman said he would celebrate his birthday Sunday privately with his family, but among the public the anniversary triggered some showy actions of loyalty as well as criticism. Mountaineers unfurled his portrait on one of Russia's tallest mountains, appealing to have it renamed "Putin Peak," while small groups protested in Moscow, some holding dentures and signs saying, "Let's send grandpa into retirement."
In the NTV report Sunday, the way Mr. Putin brushed off a suggestion that he would cling to power did little to allay some concerns in Russia that he plans to rule well beyond the end of his current term in 2018. Saying he has already given up the reins of power onceâ€"in 2008, when term limits prevented him from running for presidentâ€"Mr. Putin asserted that proves he is ready to step down again.
He admitted, however, that few believe he truly gave up control in 2008. Though Mr. Putin formally took the post of prime minister, he and Dmitry Medvedev, the protégé Mr. Putin backed as president at the time, ruled in what they called a "tandem." Mr. Medvedev then stepped aside to allow Mr. Putin to run again this year.
In the NTV report, the only reference to Mr. Medvedev, who is now prime minister, was a red tandem bicycle parked outside the presidential gym. Lifting weights as he warmed up for his morning swim, Mr. Putin said it was a gift from Mr. Medvedev.
According to the special, the president's morning routine includes a brief workout on the weight machines, followed by a 1000-meter swim in the pool and quick dips in hot and cold baths. Breakfastâ€"served after his workout, just after noon in the sparsely furnished kitchen of Mr. Putin's residenceâ€"is a solid meal of oatmeal, raw quail eggs, a drink made according to a special Putin recipe that includes beet juice and horseradish, and cottage cheese.
"Sometimes the patriarch sends me some" cottage cheese, Mr. Putin said, remarking that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church "has farms."
Later, on the presidential plane, Mr. Putin defended the church as "the last bulwark" of Russian society. Pussy Riot, the punk performers who mounted a brief anti-Putin protest in Moscow's main cathedral this spring, got what they deserved, he said.
"The court slapped them with a pair," he said, using an underworld-slang phrase to refer to the two-year sentences the three women received, a ruling that has drawn international condemnation. "They wanted this and they got it," he said. The sentence comes up for appeal Wednesday.
Asked about another high-profile case, Mr. Putin said he would consider a request for a pardon if jailed oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky made one. But the onetime billionaire has said he has no plans to admit guilt in a case he calls politically motivated.
Mr. Putin said he wasn't surprised by the anti-Kremlin protests last winter, but dismissed their participants as uncomprehending accomplices of "forces that don't want to see Russia get stronger."
Even as he professed willingness to give up the job, Mr. Putin told the NTV reporters that the restrictions of the presidential lifestyle aren't a burden.
"I really do whatever I want," he said. "I don't deny myself anything."
Write to Gregory L. White at
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