He is the modern Czar of Russia, one of the most powerful men in the world. But Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of Russia grew up in a oneroom bedsit in St Petersburg’s rat-infested streets. Then known as Leningrad, the street where Putin grew up was a tough neighbourhood to survive. This is where it’s believed that Putin got his ruthless streak. In fact, he famously once said that fifty years ago, the Leningrad street taught me a golden rule – if a fight is inevitable you have to throw the first punch.
Putin’s childhood was spent in a room with cardboard walls and several families sharing a single toilet. It was a Communist communal bedsit of those times which could at best be described as a hovel. Gangs roamed the streets and vicious brawls were common in those slum conditions where children often died of hunger. It is hard to believe that a boy who grew up in such poverty would one day rise to be one of the world’s richest and most powerful men.
The Kremlin website informs that Putin wanted to work for the Soviet intelligence, even before he finished school. And he did, going on to become a spy in East Germany as part of the KGB one of the most feared intelligence agencies in the Soviet era. He later went on to become the chief of Federal Security Service (the FSB — main successor of the KGB). And that was the beginning of Putin the Great.
Putin’s decisive moves were to later take many by surprise such as his swift military interventions in Ukraine, annexing Crimea in March 2014 and then moving into Syria where he sided with President Basar al Assad and went on to bomb anti-government rebels backed by the US, a move that soon helped tip the war in the Syrian government’s favour.
Putin has always seen himself as the restorer of Russian pride. After years of perceived humiliation by the US and its NATO allies, Putin has never made any secret of his determination to reassert Russian power. In 2005 he famously called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] Century.”
Putin also did not shy from using the language of a street fighter while defending the military onslaught against the Chechnya rebels fighting for a separate homeland. In fact, Putin went as far as to say that he would wipe them out “even in the toilet”.
The Russian President also never shies from showing his macho side and appears to quite relish that image. Flying into Chechnya in a fighter jet in 2000 and showing up at a Russian biker festival by the Black Sea in 2011 were some of his election stunts. The biker gang the Night Wolves, in fact, played a huge role in whipping up patriotic fervour during Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014.
But Putin is clever enough to showcase his gentler side too by cuddling his dogs and helping to care for the endangered Amur tigers. Putin is quite the sportsman man too – passionate about ice hockey and judo. The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi was a lavish showcase for the Putin era: it cost Russia an estimated $51bn (£34bn) the highest price tag for any Olympics.
President Putin however still enjoys great popularity despite having ruled for so long, a popularity that Western leaders can only dream of. Re-elected President in 2012 for a third, six-year term in the Kremlin, Putin continued to control the levers of power the previous four years too even though he played prime minister to President Dmitry Medvedev.
In his first two terms as president Putin was buoyed by healthy income from oil and gas - Russia’s main exports. Living standards for most Russians improved. There was a new sense of stability and national pride. But the price, in the opinion of many, was the erosion of Russia’s fledgeling democracy. In the run-up to his re-election, Russia was gripped by the biggest anti-government protests since Soviet times.
Protest leaders have been jailed or otherwise marginalised - including the most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. Navalny made a name for himself by exposing rampant corruption, labelling Putin's United Russia as “the party of crooks and thieves”.
But Navalny has been formally barred from standing in 2018 because he was found guilty of embezzlement - a charge he says was politically motivated.
The revival of religion in the Communist country after the fall of the Soviet Union has given the Orthodox Church more muscle. In fact, encouraged by the Orthodox Church, Putin’s third term has been marked by Russian nationalism. Groups accused of spreading gay ‘propaganda’ among teenagers have been banned and the Church also denounced the group Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist protest punk rock group based in Moscow.
NGOs which received foreign funding were ordered to register as foreign agents something the Soviet era had labeled such organizations fearful of the “spy.”
Putin’s wife Lyudmila had once described her husband as a workaholic. The mother of his two daughters, Lyudmila almost complained that Vladimir Vladimirovich is completely drowned in work. The couple however divorced in 2013 after nearly 30 years of marriage. There is very little information about the Putin family as he has kept his two daughters and his financial affairs completely shielded from any publicity.
His youngest daughter Tikhonova is said to be in the world of academia and doing well with a high-profile administrative job at Moscow State University. She is known to take part in acrobatic rock ‘n’ roll competitions.
It was a rare glimpse into Putin’s family life. He has kept his two daughters and financial affairs well shielded from publicity. But according to a news investigation, his younger daughter is thriving in academia, has a top administrative job at Moscow State University and performs in acrobatic rock ‘n’ roll competitions. Tikhonova is the partner of Kirill Shamalov, son of a wealthy, longstanding Putin associate, Nikolai Shamalov.
Maria, Putin’s elder daughter, is also an academic and specialising in endocrinology. Several other powerful figures close to Putin - often ex-KGB - also have successful children in lucrative management jobs.
As the opposition leader Alexei Navalny put it, it’ a "neo-feudal system" that looks after a small, privileged class.
Vladimir Putin is said to have never returned to the place where he once lived in poverty. Today Putin’s enormous wealth is pegged at some £150 billion, making him most probably the world’s richest man.
Most of his wealth is however kept hidden in secret bank accounts. He has 37 per cent control of an oil company called Surgutneftegaz and is known to have some 4.5 per cent in another gas company called Gazprom.
One of his palaces in the Black Sea is worth nearly £1billion and political rivals claim that he owns about 20 palaces and country retreats and also some 58 aircraft and choppers.
Putin is said to be obsessed with the riches and his macho photo-ops – hunting Siberian tigers, riding shirtless on horseback or taking a ride in a small military submarine. All this is a far cry from his humble beginnings.
His grandfather was a chef for the two great Russian leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. His parents married very young – his father Vladimir was a sailor on submarines and later worked for the KGB. His mother Maria did mostly cleaning jobs to keep the food on the table
Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952. The boy was secretly christened at a local church because religion was severely frowned upon by Soviet Russia and his mother had to take him while his father was away at work. Thus began the Great Putin’s journey into the world