How did Putin come to power?

known as somebody who worked quietly behind the scenes. If you go back to the early nineties, Putin was working for the first Democratic mayor of St. Petersburg and a totally soap check, and when former colleagues were interviewed about working with Putin, they reportedly described him as the man to see if things needed to get done, but otherwise it's somebody who kept a pretty low profile. That's kind

of interesting. Yeah, And when soap Check failed to get reelected, the new mayor reportedly tried to keep Putin on board, but Putin declined the job, saying it's better to be hanged for loyalty than rewarded for betrayal. I mean, I can definitely imagine that being a line that he'd use, I mean, especially these days as someone in our definitely, But this is what really got us wondering. I mean, how did Putin go from being this strong but low profile force to being this man we've seen in power

for a couple of decades now in Russia. So that's what we're talking about today. Let's dive in heither podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass wearing one of his ridiculous T shirts. I don't know how he gets these things, because he have them made, but I feel like I need to walk the audience through this one. This this it's just okay, here's what it is.

It's got a drawing of Vladimir Putin shirtless on horseback of horse standing on the roof of the Ritz, Carlton and Moscow and the caption what is it? The caption just says, Putin on the Ritz. It's such a long way to go for such a dumb joke, but that's why we love it. I mean, that dedication from Tristan to make these things. It's a pretty great and and and honestly, I'll take all the levity we can get because today's show deals entirely with Vladimir Putin and Chance Sorr.

You've heard his name a lot lately, perhaps a bit more than you'd care to. And the Russian president has been incredibly active on the world stage during the past few years, and much of that activity has been met with a combination of suspicion and outrage by the international community, you know, from alleged murders carried out in his command to you know, the illegal annexation of Crimea, to the

interference in our country's own election. There's no question that Putin has been a very busy guy in the past few years. But beneath his icy demeanor and over the top displaze of machismo, who is Putin really? How did he rise to power in the first place, and what does he actually want? And so those are the kinds of questions we're gonna be tackling today, right And to me, like one of the most crazy aspects of this whole Putent story is just how long he's been in power.

I Mean, I don't know if you realize this, but he's been in powerful almost twenty years now. He first became the Prime Minister of Russia in nineteen ninety nine, and in the nineteen years since he's alternated between that role and the presidency multiple times. It is crazy, I mean nineteen nine nine. If you think about that, Bill Clinton was our president in nineteen so can you imagine if he had stayed in office all those years exactly? And you know, two decades of continuous rule is pretty

unheard of in democracies, though. Russia's claim at a democracy has always been if you had best, especially with all the stories of corruption. Yeah, and that's true. But before we get to ahead of ourselves, when why don't we go back to the beginning, to a time when Russia made no pretense about being a democracy. So we're going back to nineteen fifty two when Putin was born. Now, the country at that point was obviously still known as the Soviet Union, and there was no waffling about what

it was, which was a one party socialist state. And Putin grew up under harsh realities of this system. And you know, his family shared a communal style apartment in Lennon Grad with I think two other families, and he was the only child of working class parents. His mother was an auto worker and his father was a decorated veteran and also a factory worker, I believe. I mean, it's so weird to think about baby Putin and even like niche Putin just being like so sullen, but so

weird to say baby Putin. But what was he even like as a child. You know, well, from everything I've read, he was just a typical kid from a pretty modest background. Like he was an average student in terms of grades and and maybe even somewhat of a troublemaker in class. Their stories you read about him always throwing a racers at his classmates and blowing off his math homework. And then as a teenager, just a typical teenager you know that was throwing a racers at classmates, I guess, but

the teenagers were doing at that point. But you know, Putin noticed while he was a teenager that some of the other boys his age were bigger than he was, and so he started learning judo and sambo, which is a Soviet combat technique. And this was all in order to be able to defend himself. Yeah, I think we've all heard about his love of judo, but it's really funny that he co authored a couple of books on the sport and even released like a silly instructional video.

It was called Let's Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin. It came out and that eight I thought about ordering a copy of it just for for this episode, but then I thought, no, that's that's probably for the best that we not, But that anyway, I'm sure it was every kid's dream to be able to learn judo from Vladimir Putin. So obviously his childhood behavior and his manly exploits hinted at the things to come. But what about his political aspirations? Was Putin like interested in government as a kid? Well

kind of, yeah. I mean he developed a passion for Spye novels and TV shows when he was still pretty young, and so much so that he even visited the KGB headquarters while he was still in school. And he did this just to find out how he could join the agency. And so because of their advice, Puttin a ended Leningrad State University, started studying law there, and then once he graduated,

he immediately started working in foreign intelligence for the KGB. Yeah, and as most of our audience knows, the KGB was a national security and intelligence agency. You know, most people think of it like the Soviet equivalent to the FBI or CIA, but really it's more like a combination that two plus it's got like a military and police component as well for good measure exactly. Well, as a young recruit, Putin had very little influence on policy and mostly was

working as a spy recruiter instead at that point. Still, he gradually worked his way up to be a mid level agent during his sixteen years or so with the KGB, and he was close to the end of his time there that Putin experienced what many now considered to be a really defining moment in his life. So what happened then, Well, it was nine and Putin was stationed at a KGB office in Dresden, East Germany, and the Cold War was coming to a close, and anti Communist protesters had started

gathering in mass to call for the dismantling of Berlin Wall. Well, one mob in particular had formed outside the KGB offices and they were threatening to storm the building and boot out the Communists who were holed up inside, and so Putin wanted to take action and fight back the mob, but actually he was told that the KGB could do

nothing until they had received orders from Moscow. So in the meantime, Putin and the others started burning these piles after piles of sensitive documents, just in case the protesters managed to get inside the building. But you know, as they waited for word from Moscow, that word actually never came. That's crazy. So I'm sure Putin didn't appreciate Moscow just hang him out to dry like that. Definitely, I mean not at all. And he later reflected on this, saying,

the business of Moscow is silent. I got the feeling that the country no longer existed, that it had disappeared. It was clear that the union was ailing, and that it had a terminal disease without a cure, a paralysis of power, which you know, it must have been a hard pill for Puttin to swallow. I know that he grew up on the steady diet of Soviet propaganda and believing how strong and resilient the state was, and and now he gets this firsthand glimpse behind iron curtain and

sees what a farce at all is. Well, that's exactly right. And it wasn't long after the panic in Dressden that the Soviet Union collapsed completely, and so the country Putin had so proudly grown up in and and had served for all this time it became a worldwide symbol of what not to do. A journalist named Ben Judah has this great book on Russia and Putin and it's called Fragile Empire, and then he describes the impact of this

Moscow silence incidents this way. He says, for Putin and his generation, those who did not come from intellectual families, who believed what they were told about the USS are superpower success and didn't question propaganda or what they did not have, that moment was a defining scar. Yeah, and it certainly explains why Putin has been so hell bent to restore Russia's superpower status and you know, to make himself seem like such a strong man on the world stage.

It's almost like he wants to take this rose in interview of the country that he has a child and turn it into reality again. But here's the thing I don't get is how does like a middle aged KGB agent turn into i don't know, like a three year

potentially four term president. Well, like with most great gigs like this, it's all about who you know, and in Putin's case, he had made, you know, quite a few political connections during his time as an intelligence agent, and one in particular was anatotally soap chack that we mentioned earlier, and he'd been one of Putin's law professors at university and had gone on to become the mayor of Leningrad, which of course is what we call St. Petersburg today.

So when Putin resigned from the KGB in nine, so Check took him under his wing and he helped him navigate the political world. And this was during the collapse of the Soviet Union. He even gave Putin a job as his international affairs advisor. With a city mayor has

his own international affairs advisor. Well, it sounds a little strange to us, but but major these in Russia, like you know St. Petersburg or Moscow, they really operate more like we would think of U. S. States operating here, and so they've got a great deal of independence and power within their own right. Really. Okay, So, so Putin's working for the mayor while his country is being restructured all around him. That still seems like a long way

offering the presidency. Well, and it was. But you know, Putin worked his way from one civic office to the next until nine and this is when his Pala soap Check, had been voted out as mayor. And at that point Putin was already on good terms with one of soap Check's close friends and government and that was Boris Yeltson, who we all remember as the first President of Russia.

So Putin moved to Moscow in n he started working for a government agency called the Presidential Property Management Department. Now this was an agency task with moving all the assets of the former Soviet Union to this newly formed Russian Federation. You know, since there was no private ownership whatsoever in the previous communist state, that meant that there was a ton of property and all these natural resources to be able to divvy up at that point. So

it was a huge task. But I mean it also seems like this short fire recipe for corruption, right, Oh, definitely. I mean, the agency's officials could award oil, drilling rights, military equipment, all these other valuable assets to whoever offered them the most in return, and in fact, most people speculate that this is where Putin started building his vast personal fortune, which I was blown away just in doing our research this week about this, because it's thought to

be in the tens of billions of dollars. I mean, I knew the guy was super rich, but tens of billions of dollars is what they estimate. That's ridiculous. Now, it seems we're only three years out from Putin's first crack of the presidency. So tell us where he goes

from here? All right? So Putin reconnects with his roots in the late nineties and joins the FSB and and this is the replacement agency for the KGB, and so he quickly works his way up the ladder and its and President Yeltsin himself makes Putin the head of the FSB. Then't less. In the year after that, Yeltson promotes Putin again by appointing him as the Prime Minister of Russia. Now that's second only in command to the president in terms of rank there, but actually that's not even it.

On the very same day, in August of nineteen ninety nine, Yeltson also announced his hopes that Putin would be his presidential successor. But rather than waiting to see if the people of Russia would actually make that happen, Yeltson made an unprecedented move. With just a few months left to go in his second term, Yeltson stepped down as president.

This was on New Year's Eve of nineteen nine nine, and he named Putin as the acting president in his stead, and then Putin won his first official term in the March two thousand election, which actually, by the way, this was the first time in his political career that Putin actually ran for office. That's crazy, and obviously it's this

rapid rise that doesn't feel that democratic. But do we know why Yelson would take such extreme measures, Like did you just have that much faith in Putin's leadership or his abilities or something. Well, Yeltson was definitely impressed with Putin's performance, but the general consensus is that pushing him into this presidential position it was really more of a

way for Yeltson to protect himself. So at the time, Russia was at war with these separatist forces in Chechnian and they wanted their region to be independent rather than just another part of Russia, and the war wasn't going well for Russia by and yelts of the approval ratings were suffering as a result of this, and so the theory actually seems pretty credible, and especially when you consider that one of Putin's first acts as president was to

grant yelts In immunity from all criminal or administrative investigation. That's ridiculous. And I mean it's funny because like people always talk about Putin being an enemy of government transparency, and this all seems pretty transparent to me. It seems like a pretty obvious move. And you know, there are plenty of other telling actions that Putin took during the early years of his rule, but before we get into those,

let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about Vladimir Putin and his rise to power, all right, Mango. So, so during Putin's first term as president, there was one incident that really kicked off this whole myth of Putin as it's kind of this kind of like an unflappable man of action. And it happened back in two thousand two, and this was back when Russia was knee deep in a second war with Czech new and a group of forty Zech and

militants rated this Moscow theater. Of course we all remember this story, and and they managed to take more than

nine hundred civilians hostage. The militants demanded that Russian forces be withdrawn from Czechnia in return for the hostages release, but Putin actually refused to negotiate, and so the ensuing standoff drag un for three days, at which point the Russian special forces stormed the theater, and so by the end of the ordeal, all forty of the militants were dead, along with a hundred and twenty nine of those hostages under twenty nine hostages. That's really horrible at but you're

saying this actually helped build Putin's reputation. Yes, surprisingly it did. I mean people abroad thought Putin's handling of this situation would actually cripple his domestic approval rating, but it actually had the opposite effect. And just looking at the changes in approval rating over a period of time here is

is pretty staggering. So you know, he had been looking at an approval rating of like two percent during his brief stint as Prime minister, but his presidential ratings actually averaged in the low sixties before this Moscow hostage situation, and then after his approval rating sword to something like eighty three percent. I mean, it was crazy high. And the vast majority of Russians had responded positively to Putin's

ruthless approach. So from then on he started, you know, kind of like crafting this this public image as a strongman. And you know, once I started looking into all these supermanly photo ops, I was just struck by how ridiculous an image it all adds up to, like when you

piece them together. I mean, you know, they're those famous photos of him like flexing his muscles while arm wrestling or posing shirtless on horseback, but they are all these other excessively butch activities that he supposedly excels at too. So in two thousand and ten, he went on an expedition with a group of marine biologists and shot a whale with a crossbow. You know, I mean, I guess

there was a scientific purpose for this. The scientists could collect its skin samples for research, And in two thousand thirteen, Putin dove two ft underwater to the bottom of the Gulf of Finland just to check out a hundred forty year old shipwreck. I mean when you piece all of this together, it really is more like a caricature. Like you know, Putin starts to sound like the old dos sekis dude, the most interesting man in the world kind

of thing. I mean, you think about what you just said, like he shoots whales with crossbows and goes on these sunken shipwrecks and is a black belt judo master. I mean, the list just goes on and on, I know, but it is funny how often you can see the strings on a lot of these pr stots and how manufactured they clearly are. What do you mean by that? Like a good example is this archaeological discovery that Putin supposedly made while on a scuba diving trip in the Black Sea.

So this was in two thousand eleven, and there was footage from the dive where Putin's holding these two pieces of a Greek urn that's said to be from the sixth century BC. And Putin looks at the camera and says, the boys and I found them, and it's in like two ms of clear water, Like it's just like floating there, you know, the way that price like relics tended to. Yeah, that's the way it works. I mean, and not only is this guy super macho, but he's apparently also insanely

lucky too, I guess. Yeah. And so the idea of stumbling across these ancient artifacts in a few of you to water, you know, there's obviously no way. So after three months of Russian blogs and independent media is saying the same thing, Putin's chief spokesman finally admitted that the whole thing was staged for the cameras, except you know, he was still trying to play it off as intentional. Like just listen to the super defensive statement he made

in an interview. So this is his quote. Look, Putin didn't find the jug that had lay in there for many thousands of years. It's obvious. Of course they were found in the course of an expedition several weeks or days earlier. Of course they were left there or placed there. It's completely normal. There's no reason to gloat about this and everything else, like he says, Look, and of course so many times in that statement. Yeah, I mean, don't you just love it when government officials say it's your

fault for taking them at face value. I mean, suddenly, like you're the idiot for thinking they actually meant what they said. Yeah, I mean, and that isn't the only time Putin has been caught in a lie. There's evidence of him being photoshopped and like looking more cut as a result of it. And uh, there's also during a visit to Siberia in two thousand thirteen, he claimed to have caught a forty six pound pike while fishing, which

would actually make it one of the world's largest. But you know, the way to the fish was never substantiated, and like all these eagle eyed Russian anglers who saw the photos, they argued that Putin's cash probably the only way about twenty pounds or so, so petty, Well, you know, Putin's provado was definitely keeping with his authoritarian leanings. But one interesting idea I found in my research is that his obsession with his public image is he's actually partly

a way to associate himself with other leaders in Russian history. Huh, I mean, that's an interesting idea, like, you know, putting him in line of this legacy. But but what do you mean exactly, like, did Russian tsars cheat at fishing? Well? And then not exactly. But back in two thousand and fourteen, there was a big celebration in Russia for Putin's sixty second birthday, and as part of the festivities there was this art exposition in Moscow called the Twelve Labors of Putin,

Like like Hercules, Like the Twelve Labors Hercules. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. And so in Greek mythology, Hercules completes these twelve difficult task and becomes Greece's greatest hero in the process. But in the paintings, it's Putin facing this three headed hydra with a sword and a shield in his hands. And the painting is titled the Taming of the Cretan Bowl, and it's just Putin in a toga straddling this giant bowl. Yeah. So obviously this kind of

naked propaganda is right up Putin's alley. But I'm guessing there's more to this imagery than just you know, a PC Russian guy wrestling a bull. Yeah, there are a few details in the painting that speak volumes about the situation. For for instance, the bull's forehead features the crest of Crimea, which you probably remember was illegally annexed by Russian two thousand and fourteen, and ribbons bearing the Russian colors or round around the bull's horn and held his reins by Putin.

You know, now, historically the Crimean peninsula has caught the attention of foreign rulers going back thousands and thousands of years, and just looking at the list of conquers and includes Julius Caesar, Caligula, Justinian, a pair of Russian puns Is as well as others, and so you know, with his own controversial coup back in two thousand fourteen, Putin's just adding his name to this illustrious list as he would see it. That's crazy. I had no idea, but I mean,

I guess I explains the Crimea connection. But why would uh, why would he do this thing? Like based on Hercules or Greek mythology, like you said, Putin want to be associated with Russian rulers, right, yeah, and many Russia and Tsars have actually traced their roots back to ancient Greece.

But maybe more broadly than that, this Russian Greek connection is away from Pune to legitimize these territorial claims and kind of cast himself as the inheritor of this long, proud history of of these larger than life figures, I guess. And there's actually an article in Pacific Standard that describes the effect this way. It says, by looking to ancient Rome, Greece and the reign of the Tsars, Putin continually works to wipe out the memory of the Soviet system that

produced him. The elected president of Russia. Uses art, opera and holiday pageantry to assert his lineage directly from Csar's families, and to justify his foreign policy and crimea modeling on the strongest of them. He becomes a legend. That's really funny. And I guess it's like connecting him to the little stuff too, right, like finding that Grecian urn. It's it's almost a subtle way to reinforce the association between him

and Greek antiquity. Yeah, it was just lucky that he stumbled on it like that, right, But you know, you think about those desperate grabs that legitimacy. They become more frequent the longer Putin's days in power. And so his first two terms as president, we're controversial enough, and and all these corruption scandals and press crackdowns and even these alleged murders that we've read about, and and since then, Putin's had a seconds then as Prime Minister, and then

it returned to the presidency for a third term. At this time it's for six years instead of four. So it actually kind of makes sense that Putin would come to depend more and more on these blatant pr stunts and I guess borrowed credibility and all that to try to help ease these concerns about his seemingly endless rule. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Actually, when I was looking at photos, I found this thing called a teenage Putin fan club, and it's like these photos from earlier

in his career. But it's kind of amazing because all these teenagers really took up the mantle of Putin and they started wearing like T shirts and posters and identified themselves as like almost Putent's biggest fans. So, actually, let let me find a few quotes for you. Yeah, this is from Vika and mat Ana seventeen, and she says he is like God to me. In the fan club, we don't just sit around and look at his pictures. We participated in marches and exchange information about him. I

wear a T shirt with his portrait to school. I want everyone to know I'm his fan. And here's another one from Julia Pipolova eighteen. I have five different T shirts with Putin's portrait, several kinds of postcards with vv which is Putin's nickname, on them. We designed them ourselves. It's a real commitment. But I do want to talk a little more about, you know, the state of Putin's power today and who he really is underneath all that posturing.

But before we dig in, let's take a quick break, all right, mango, So it's time to dish the dirt. Who is the real Vladimir Putin? It's it's it's all on you. He's just a supersensitive guy. I think it seems like it. Well, I mean, the whole thing is it depends on who you ask, right, I mean, plenty of Russians would say he's a successful and capable leader.

I mean, even if they stopped short of believing that Putin is the pinnacle of manliness that he plays at being, they still might credit him for, you know, growing the economy or boosting the country standing in the world. But many people outside of Russia, and many others within would probably say that Putin's just another bully with a chip on his shoulder. I mean, do you remember that time in two thousand seven when Putin brought his giant black

labrador to an official meeting with Angela Merkel. He actually, he actually knew that Merkel was afraid of dogs because she had been bitten by one a few years earlier. So bringing his lab was like this power play he used to try and scare her. It's pathetic. Yeah, I remember this, and actually, if I remember correctly, Merkel had a pretty strong reaction of this, right Yeah, So I've actually added down here so when reporters questioned or afterwards,

she broke down the reaction like this quote. I understand why he has to do this to prove he's a man. He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this. Ah. That is a sick Merkel burn, I think, especially coming from a chancellor as well. Yeah, but I mean it's also super insightful, right, like as it's this obvious show of aggression to mask his weakness and to make up for some perceived slight and that's just got Putin written

all over it. It's classic Putin and classic Merkel two. But I mean that that is kind of his m O. I mean, for example, this month's cover story in The Atlantic lays out the idea that, you know, the two thousand sixteen Russian hacking was was actually just an emotional retaliation for the release of the Panama Papers a few years back. I mean, that's so crazy, because you don't

think of like Putting being emotional at all. Yeah, that's right. Basically, the Panama Papers were yield that an old friend of Putin's. His name was Sergey roal Dugan. I believe he had about two billion dollars in an account and his name. And this is kind of odd because Sergey was a professional cellist, and I haven't done the research to find out what most cellists make, but I don't think they typically have billions of dollars lying around. But anyway, long

story short on this. When journalists were able to show that Sergey's account was likely this communal piggy bank for Putin's inner circle, so of course this situation was super embarrassing to Putin and the Russian government, and they perceived the report about Sergey as this personal attack, and they

felt that it was orchestrated by the US government. So putin spokesman, the same guy who made the statement about the Grecian earn stunt you were talking about earlier, he blamed the Panama paper reporting on quote many former State Department and CIA employees who sought to destabilize Russia ahead of its parliamentary elections that September. Oh wow, So like the DNC hacking and all the Russian trolls on Facebook that this was all just like Putin's response to this

attack on his favorite cellist. I guess you put it that way. It may sound a little bit weird, but I mean pretty much. But according to a Russian journalist named Andrea sold the tof, Putin called this urgent meeting of his National Security Council. This same week the Panama papers came out, and this is likely when Putin gave the order for them to strike back. That is so crazy. But I mean, looking at the timeline, those cyber attacks would have had to like come together really quickly, right.

I mean, it's funny because so many Americans view Putin and Russia as being super organized and well informed, and uh, you know capable of carrying out these intricate, long running plots that have been planned out to a t. But this almost makes it seem like they were just winging it. Yeah, and I think to a certain extent they actually were. And that doesn't mean Putin and Russia don't actually pose

dangers to the US and to democracy in general. But you know, whether it was the result of a long and careful plot at attempt or or just something they managed to pull together on the flaw. I the Russians did interfere with our election, and by doing that undermine faith in our institutions. And the plan really worked, and that's something worth keeping in mind and all of this, and it's actually something that Julia Iophie points out in

her Atlantic article. She writes Putin pulled off a spectacular geopolitical heist on a shoe string budget about two hundred million dollars. According to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the point is lost on many Americans. This a version of the election was as much a product of improvisation and entropy as it was of a long range vision.

What makes Putin effective, what makes him dangerous, is not strategic brilliance but a tactical flexibility and adaptability, a willingness to experiment, disrupt, and to take big risks. I mean that that sounds right to me. Even something like running for a third presidential term showed that willingness in him. And don't get me wrong, the Russian constitution allows for a third term so long as it isn't served consecutively.

But since the document itself only dates back to the early nineties, Putin's actually the first to make use of that allowance. And of course there were many people in Russia who were totally uncomfortable with this and felt that a third term actually violated the spirit of the constitution. And Russia's two thousand twelve election was controversial in other ways too, so rampant reports of electoral fraud pointed to everything from like stuffed ballot boxes to supporters being bust

two different precincts to vote. I mean, it was crazy well, and and those reports only seem more credible in light of the results, right, I think, didn't Putin get something like sixty of the vote that year? Yeah, sixty percent officially, but there was a poll that came out that said fifty seven percent of Russians believed a person should be

limited to two presidential terms in total. Wait, so if Russia allows two consecutive terms before you have to sit one out, does that mean Putin is running for president again this year? Yeah, the elections next month actually, But since Putin winning is such a short thing, he didn't even declare that he was running for election until last December,

and honestly, he probably won't even bother the campaigning. You know, for a second, I almost envy the Russian public for not having to sit through these never ending presidential campaigns. But I mean, I guess it's not worth it if it's at the cost of actual democratic choice. But all right, well, it sounds like Putin is pretty much a lock for another six year term. So is there any upside to this?

I mean not from where I'm sitting, unless you count the fact that a fourth term essentially rules out a fifth one, since you know, the constitution prevents him from running three times in a row, and he'd be seventy seven years old by the time his next chance rolls around. I don't think I would count Puttin out yet. I mean, you've seen him on that horse. I think he'll be ready when he's seventy. But it does make you wonder, like, what is a post Putin Russia going to look like?

I mean, he's basically been at the wheel of the country in its current form for most of its brief existence. So what happens when he's finally gone? Yes, that's the thing, right, No, one's actually sure. Style of leadership doesn't actually allow much room for a legacy building or you know, any plans

of succession. And he's so focused on his own survival and staying in power and also maintaining this appearance of legitimacy that there isn't really much time to think about how the country will get along in the future without him. As one of Putin's allies and government put it quote, we don't have a tradition of Okay, you serve two terms and you leave. We have no other tradition but to hold out to the end and leave the first. Yeah,

which is such a dangerous system. And when you think about it, because how can you ever make real progress when your leader is perpetually bracing for a coup? Right, It's it's almost like all of Putin's hardwired nationalism and his fondness for those glory days of Soviet rule have actually set the country up to repeat the same mistakes that made in the twentieth century. Well, I mean, I hope not for the sake of the Russian people, but

you're probably right in that situation. And actually Julia came to a similar conclusion in her Atlantic article that we were talking about earlier, and he kind of sums up what we've been talking about pretty nicely, and so so, she writes, ironically, Putin has laid the groundwork for exactly the kind of chaotic collapse that he spent his political life trying to avoid, the kind of collapse that gave rise to his own rain. He has made himself a

hostage to a system he built with his own hands. Well, I mean, it actually makes me feel a little better after so many months of hearing about how Putin's undermining the US. Yeah, I know what you mean, obviously. And another thing that helps is this word replace or extension that I found from my web browser. So whenever the word Putin appears in an article, it automatically gets converted to Pottie Poot because that was George PUSH's nickname for him.

All right, Well, you should have saved that for the fact off Mango actually for for today's fact off. I think we agreed to focus on some of the more interesting publicity stunts that were pulled off by Puttin over the years. Or are you still getting for that? Definitely? So we mentioned his horseback riding earlier, but there are a few other bizarre animals on stage to show Putin's love of animals. So back in two thousand ten, a photo surface of Putin trying to help in the tracking

of polar bears as a threatened species. The photos of Putin actually putting a tracking device on a polar bears neck, but I don't actually think that's my favorite story of Pudin helping out animals. There was an effort to save a population of Siberian white cranes, and as an article in the Week dot Com puts it quote, Putin donned a puffy white jumpsuit last year and boarded a motorized hand glider to lead a flock of endangering Siberian cranes

on their winter migratory path. I mean, who does that. It's just a takes a real champ birds. It's just so crazy. Well, Putin has been quoted as saying that one way for Russia to build a greater political dominance in the world is for the population to get bigger, and that families in Russia should have at least three kids,

you know, for for every single family. And my favorite move he used to inspire people to get on with their baby making is that he reportedly called on none other than the beautiful singing voices of Boys two Men, and they had they actually had a concert there in Moscow, and so I don't know that probably did the trick when you think they are pretty sexy, but apparently Boys

Too Men wasn't the only ones performing there. Back in two thousand ten, at a charity event in St. Petersburg, Putin himself decided to perform, and for some reason, he's saying, uh, Bat's Domino's Blueberry Hill in it. I mean, it's amazing in the audience with celebrities like Sharon Stone Kevin Costner, And while most of his stunts seemed to be faked, this one was apparently real. Actually looked that one up and yeah, it's a pretty accurate, but it's it's just

so weird to watch. And why he chose a Fats Domino song like just such a weird thing. Rude there, I guess so well, in a different kind of stunt, I did like when Putin proposed that Steven Seagal, like, yes, action man, Steven Seagal, that he should become this intermediary and the communication between the US and Russia. So apparently Putin and Segal are buddies. And so when I love this reaction that when Obama got word of this recommendation, his only response was just, You've got to be kidding.

That's so good. So did you ever hear the story about Patriots owner Bob Kraft and his interaction with Putin? No? I didn't. So this is back in two thousand five and a group of American business execs met with Putin for some reason, and in the meeting, Craft was showing Putin his most recent Super Bowl ring, and reportedly like, Putin just tried to ring on and then put it

in his pocket and walked out of the room. And of course the media was all over it, right, and people assume Crafted not really intended to give the ring, But the next day Craft released a statement saying the Russian president was clearly taken with its uniqueness. At that point, I decided to give him. The ring is a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin. I can't imagine that that would have in his reaction and pretty

much anybody's reaction from that. Wait, so why are you letting a candle? And what is that smell? Well, that, sir, is the smell of Vladimir Putin apparently, And I found this on Amazon, and it's a Vladimir Putin scented candles. So let me just let me just read the description here. It says, have you ever wished that there were a way to capture the scent of Vladimir Putin so you can have the pleasure of smelling him whenever you wanted? Well, now there is, and it's this candle. But you probably

already figured that out. The Putin scented candle combines notes of pine earth and the smoke billowing from cities of your enemies. It's a manly fragrance designed to evoke the essence of Vladimir Putin and eliminate the smell of political dissidence from your home. Housing a sixteen ounced tent container that features a shirtless photo of Vladimir Putin on the lid. The Putin scented candle makes the perfect confusing housewarming president

or inappropriate baby shower gifts. So I'm not sure if this is an officially sanctioned Putin smelling candle, but what ever, I mean, this is awesome. It is weird, but I have to give it to you. I think with that scent, you've overpowered me and and I have no choice but to give you this week's trophy. It is a pretty overpowering set. I think I'm gonna blow this outfield. Thank you very much. It is an honorable listeners. I'm sure we forgot some pretty incredible facts about Putin or Russia

or the former Soviet Union. If you'd love to share those with us, we would love to hear them. You can always email us at part Time Genius at how stuff works dot com. You can also call us on our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important

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