Putin unmasked

Source: The Times
Date: March 17, 2000

 

The question everyone asked when Vladimir Putin became acting President of Russia was: who is he? Today, in the first of our exclusive extracts from a new book, we reveal Putin the man, the husband and the spy

Lyudmila Putina with her husband, Vladimir Putin, Ex-spy who became the leader of Russia Lyudmila Putina with her husband, Vladimir Putin

When Vladimir Putin appeared on the world stage in January, almost nobody knew who he was. He had been Prime Minister of Russia for only a few months, and less was known of him than of any Russian leader, including Brezhnev at the height of the Cold War.

Boris Yeltsin's announcement that he was standing down, and that Putin would be his Acting President, came as a surprise to everyone, including the CIA - which was embarrassingly bereft of information. "We're scrambling," one American intelligence official told The New York Times. Even in his own country, Putin's career was shrouded in mystery.

The known facts were these: at 47, he was married, had two daughters and was a judo black-belt. He did not drink, did not crack louche jokes and could be relied upon to speak in carefully prepared soundbites. In short, he could not be more different from his mentor.

A former KGB officer, he has been described by colleagues as a chameleon and an enigma.

So what makes the man who is most likely to become Russia's next president tick? Three journalists from the popular daily newspaper Kommersant were granted unprecedented access to Putin in the course of six meetings. Natalya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova and Andrei Kolesnikov also spoke to people close to him, including his wife, Lyudmila, and his daughters, Katya and Masha.

The result of their conversations is a book - written in question and answer form, with additional contributions from those who know him - that gives the world its first, fascinating insight into the man who, in ten days' time, will almost certainly win Russia's presidential election. The question for the West is: is this a man we can do business with?

My mother was once given a lottery ticket and she won a car. I was in the third year at university and had just bought myself my first real coat. My family did not have enough money, but even so my parents decided not to cash the ticket but to give the car to me. I was a reckless driver, but I was also frightened of crashing the car.

You did have a serious accident, though, and you knocked a man over.

It wasn't my fault, it was proven. He was trying to kill himself. A real idiot. He ran away straight after the accident.

They say you chased him.

Meaning what? You think I hit him with a car, and then tried to catch him? I am not that beastly. I just got out of the car.

Are you calm under stress?

Much too calm. In one character assessment, they wrote the following as a negative trait: "He has a lowered sense of danger". Apparently you are supposed to be wound up when you're under stress, in order to respond appropriately. It is considered important. Fear is like pain. And if there is pain, it is a signal that something is wrong with your body.

During your university years did you have any love affairs?

Who didn't? But only one was serious.

Was she your first love?

Yes. We were going to get married. It was about four years before I actually got married.

Did she marry someone else?

Someone else? No.

So who decided that you wouldn't marry?

I did. I made that decision. We had already filed the application to get married. Everything was ready. Both sets of parents had bought everything: rings, suits and dresses. It was one of the most difficult decisions in my life. Very hard. I must have seemed a complete bastard. But I had decided it was better to do it then than for both of us to suffer afterwards. I told her the whole truth, everything I thought I had to.

You don't want to talk about it?

No, it is a complicated story. Things happen. It was really hard.

You wish you hadn't done it?

No.

Sergei Raldugin, friend and cello soloist at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg:

I liked that girl. She was a good person, a medical student, strong-willed. She looked after him. But did she really love him? Lyuda, his wife, really does.

In principle he is a very emotional man, but he was completely incapable of expressing his emotions. I used to say to him: "Vovka, it's frightening talking to you." He is much better than he used to be. I am an actor, and I was trying to help as such. He had powerful emotions, but couldn't put them into words. I suspect his job influenced the way he talked, his speech became a series of clichés. He is a brilliant speaker now, though. Emotional, deep, clear.

He told me at once that he was working in the KGB. Maybe he shouldn't have. He told lots of people that he was in the police. I was curious, of course: what's it like in there? I told him once: "Look, I am a cellist, I play the cello. But what sort of profession is yours? I know that you are a spy. But I don't know what that means. Who are you? What can you do?" And he said to me: "I am a specialist in communicating with people". Our discussion ended with this.

He truly believed that he was a professional judge of human character. When I divorced my first wife, Irina, he said: "I knew that it would happen". I did not agree with him, but his words made a big impression on me."

How did you meet your wife?

I was working in the First Sub-department in Petersburg when an acquaintance called and said he was inviting me to the theatre. He had tickets, there would be girls. We went. There really were some girls.

The next day, we went to the theatre again. On the third day, we returned yet again. I started seeing one of the girls. We became friends. It was Lyuda, my future wife.

And how long did these meetings go on?

For a long while - about three years, probably. I was already 29, I was used to planning everything. And my friends started saying: "Listen, stop all this, why don't you get married?"

Maybe they were jealous.

Of course they were. But I understood myself that if I didn't get married for another couple of years, I wouldn't get married at all. Although, of course, I had bachelor habits already. Lyudmila uprooted those.

Lyudmila Putina, wife:

I'm from Kaliningrad. I worked as a stewardess on domestic aircraft. There were no international lines in the Kaliningrad air department: Kaliningrad was a closed city. Our department was small and young. A girlfriend and I flew to Leningrad for three days. She was also a stewardess from our department. She asked me to the Lensoviet Theatre to an Arkady Raikin concert, to which she had been invited by an acquaintance. She was scared of going alone, so she asked me. The [male] acquaintance, on finding out that I was coming, asked Volodya [a friendly diminutive form of Vladimir]. The three of us - me, my girlfriend and her acquaintance - arrived at the theatre ticket office on Nevsky [St Petersburg's main street] near a clocktower. Volodya was standing on some steps. He was modestly, even poorly, dressed. He was inconspicuous - on the street I would have paid no attention to him.

We watched the first half of the concert and during the interval we went to the buffet. I was the one livening things up, trying to get everyone to have a laugh. They didn't react much, but that didn't faze me. After the concert we agreed to go to the theatre again: we went for three days. We realised that Volodya could get tickets to any theatre. Although afterwards it turned out that his friend had got the tickets to Raikin.

Sergei Roldugin:

I bought my first car, a first-model Zhiguli. I had just left the Conservatory. I had more money than Vovka [Putin]. I used to bring him souvenirs from my trips, little footballs and things.

We had agreed to meet on Nevsky. The girls arrived on time. One of them was Lyuda, she was sweet and nice. They sat in my Zhiguli. We waited for him. I was incredibly embarrassed sitting there with them like that: various friends were going by, recognising me - it wasn't at all how it should be. We sat like that for about an hour. All that time I was exhausting those two girls with my conversation. At leas that's how it seemed to me, but actually, we were all getting on fine.

At last Volodya appeared. He was almost always late. We went to the theatre. What we saw there, I can't remember, I just remember those people walking past the car and recognising me.

Lyudmila and Vladimir on their wedding day, Marriage was an extremely serious business for both of them Lyudmila and Vladimir on their wedding day: marriage was an extremely serious business for both of them

Lyudmila Putina:

On the second day we went to Leningrad Music Hall; on the third we returned to the Lensoviet theatre. Three days, three theatres. And every time Volodya got hold of tickets. On the third day we had to say goodbye. We were in the Metro. His friend stood aside. He knew Volodya didn't very willingly give any information about himself, let alone his home phone number. Suddenly he saw Volodya giving me his telephone number. "What, have you gone mad?" he said to Volodya as I was going. Volodya had never done that before.

He told me that he worked in criminal investigations. After some time, I found out that it was really in the KGB, in foreign intelligence. To me, it was all the same: KGB or criminal investigation. I didn't see much difference then. Now I know the difference.

I told her I worked in the police force because those who worked in the security organisations, especially foreign intelligence, were bound by strict rules. If it became too widely known where you really worked, they didn't send you abroad. I didn't know how our friendship would end.

Lyudmila Putina:

Falling in love with Volodya came later, and strongly. But not at once. Initially, I just called him.

I didn't have a telephone in Kaliningrad. At first I rang Volodya, then I started to fly there on dates. Most people travel to their dates by trams, buses or taxis. But I flew to mine.

Something about Volodya attracted me. Within three or four months, I had decided that he was exactly the man I needed. Why? Perhaps it was that inner strength that now attracts everyone.

We courted for three and a half years. Then one evening we were sitting at his house and he said: "My little friend, you know now what kind of person I am. I'm not very easy-going." He launched into a character-reading of himself: taciturn, sharp-tongued, sometimes capable of offending and so on. He was, he said, a high-risk life partner, adding: "In the last three and a half years, you've probably worked all that out for yourself."

I thought he was proposing that we split up. "I've worked everything out," I said. He answered doubtfully: "Yes?"

And then he said: "Well, if that's how things are, then I love you and I propose that we get married on such-and-such a date," It was completely unexpected.

I said I would, and we got married three months later. We had our wedding in a floating restaurant, a steamer moored on the riverbank. We took the event very seriously. Even in the wedding photos it's evident that we were both extremely serious. For me, marriage was not an easy step. It was the same for him.

We lived at his parents' place. They lived in a 15-metre room with a balcony. And ours was 12 metres, with no balcony. The flat was in Avtovo district, in a new building. Volodya's father had been given it because he was an invalid after the war.

His parents treated me like a woman who had chosen their son. And they thought of him as the light shining through their window. They did all that they could for him They looked out for him all their lives.

Vladimir Spiridonovich and Maria Ivanovna were very good parents. And my husband's relationship with them was enviable. He was cautious with them and never did anything to upset them. Of course, sometimes they were unhappy with something or he was dissatisfied with them. And in such a situation he would always prefer to keep quiet than to give them pain.

In the first year after our marriage there was a feeling of constant joy and being on holiday. It carried on afterwards, when I was pregnant with our eldest child, Masha. She was born while Volodya was away for a year studying in Moscow. I went to see him every month in Moscow. And he came home once or twice. Any more was impossible.

Sergei Roldugin, friend.

Once Volodya came from Moscow for a few days and managed to break his arm - in the Metro someone got rough with him, and he brushed the hooligan off, and as a result he broke his arm. In judo there is no attack technique.

Volodya was very miserable: "They won't understand in Moscow. I'm afraid there will be consequences," he said. And there was definitely some upleasantness. He didn't enlighten me in detail. But in the end it all passed.

Lyudmila Putina:

As a result of Volodya's studies, a work trip to Germany came up. He had to go to Berlin, but here one of Volodya's friends recommended him to the head of a group in Dresden because he was a Leningrader, too. Going to Berlin was considered more prestigious, and the work was more interesting, with an outlet to West Berlin. But I didn't probe in detail and Volodya did not enlighten me. We never had discussed it.

Sergei Roldugin:

Volodya and Lyuda went well together in every respect. Over time, of course, her character started to become clearer. She was not afraid to tell the truth. And she wasn't afraid to say of herself: "I can sometimes become really stifling."

Once I bought a rocking chair and couldn't manage to cram it into my car. She started advising me, saying: "You have to turn it around like this, not like that." I said: "Lyuda, just shut up." She burst into near-hysterics. "But why are you men all so thick?" she demanded.

Lyudmila is five years younger than me. Before she met me she studied in a technical higher education institute, which she left in the third year. She thought about where to go next.

That's when we met, and this, you might say, influenced her. She started asking me things, seeking advice, about where to study next. I said "Go to university". But it was she who decided to go to the languages faculty, first to the preparatory department. She learnt Spanish and French. and rudimentary Portuguese. While in Germany she learnt to speak the language fluently.

Sergei Roldugin:

Before they left for Germany their little Masha was born. I had a relative with a dacha near Vyborg, a great place, and we went there after they let Lyuda out of the maternity ward and we all lived there together: Volodya, Lyuda, me and my wife. Of course we celebrated the birth of Masha. In the evenings we arranged dances - Vovka was a real mover.

After the trip Lyuda was put through [security] tests, which started while I was still studying in Moscow. At that moment it wasn't yet clear precisely where I was going and demands for members of families were extremely strict. For example, a wife had to have health good enough to work in a hot or a wet climate.

Otherwise imagine: you had been taught for five years, prepared, and then at last you had to go abroad to a job, in a military establishment - and your wife's health wasn't up to it. It would have been terrible!

My wife had all the checks going. No one told her the results, of course. Only afterwards did they call her into the executive department at the university and tell her that she had passed. And we went to Germany.

Your children seem very happy together. Why did you decide to have them so close together?

Lyudmila Putina:

That's how Volodya wanted it. Actually, he really loves the little girls. Not all men have the kind of touching relationship with their children that he has. He's always spoilt them, so it's been up to me to bring them up.He always said: "Whatever God gives is good". He's never said he wanted a boy.

[About their dog, Tosca] She's a toy poodle, though now she's more like a lapdog. To begin with Volodya didn't really trust her: he thought she was too small. But now he loves her.

Regarding the girls' futures, Masha says the word "management" very seriously. Katya says she wants to design furniture.

The girls see their father more often on the television than at home! But he always goes to see them whenever he comes home. The agreement is that Katya and Masha must go to bed at 11. If they're late, we don't let them have friends over the next Saturday. Perhaps that's too strict, but otherwise they would sit up until 3am. I believe in self-control. If they sit up till three, they know what the consequences will be.

I bet they can twist their father around their little fingers.

Lyudmila Putin:

No one would be able to twist HIM round their fingers.

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