Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrates his birthday on October 7. The Russian head of state has turned 74. Here are 10 little-known facts about him.<\/p>\n
1. His grandfather was a cook for both Lenin and Stalin.<\/strong><\/p>\n Vladimir Putin’s grandfather, Spiridon Putin, worked as a cook first for Vladimir Lenin and later for Joseph Stalin. Putin himself spoke about this in a documentary released in 2018.<\/p>\n 2. Putin became interested in the KGB while he was still at school.<\/strong><\/p>\n As a schoolboy, Putin became interested in the KGB and personally went to the Leningrad KGB office to ask how he could join the organization. He was told that the KGB did not simply accept people who applied on their own and was advised to study law.<\/p>\n Several years later, after graduating from law school, Putin was offered a job by the KGB itself.<\/p>\n 3. He studied under a false name at the KGB.<\/strong><\/p>\n In Moscow, at a KGB training institution for foreign intelligence officers, Putin studied under the assumed name “Platonov.” He also studied German and practiced judo there.<\/p>\n 4. He grew up in a communal apartment without even a private bathroom.<\/strong><\/p>\n Putin’s family lived in a communal apartment in Leningrad, sharing living facilities with other families.<\/p>\n One of his childhood memories was chasing rats with a stick along the staircase. Putin spoke about this in his biographical interviews, later published in the book First Person.<\/p>\n 5. His political biography includes an unusual academic controversy.<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1997, Putin defended a doctoral dissertation in economics. In 2006, researchers at the Brookings Institution claimed that some passages of the dissertation had been taken almost word for word from a 1978 book by American scholars William King and David Cleland.<\/p>\n A Brookings publication stated that entire passages of Putin’s dissertation matched the original text without proper quotation marks or page references.<\/p>\n 6. Putin moved from one martial art to another and became a Soviet Master of Sports in both.<\/strong><\/p>\n Putin first practiced sambo and later took up judo. According to Putin himself, he received the Soviet title of Master of Sports in both sambo and judo.<\/p>\n In 2013, he was also awarded an honorary ninth dan in taekwondo, although taekwondo was not his main martial art.<\/p>\n 7. In Dresden, Putin witnessed the collapse of the Soviet system firsthand.<\/strong><\/p>\n On December 5, 1989, in the East German city of Dresden, demonstrators approached the nearby KGB building after storming the headquarters of East Germany’s security service, the Stasi.<\/p>\n At the time, KGB officer Vladimir Putin was serving in the building, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel (some sources describe him as a major). With no senior commander available, he had to take control of the situation.<\/p>\n Putin contacted a nearby Soviet military unit and requested tanks and reinforcements to protect the building. The soldiers refused, saying that they could do nothing without orders from Moscow. According to Putin’s recollection, he was told: “Moscow is silent.”<\/p>\n Realizing that no help was coming, KGB officers began hastily burning and destroying secret archives and documents to prevent them from falling into the hands of the demonstrators.<\/p>\n Putin personally went outside and addressed the crowd in German, warning that the building was Soviet territory and that the guards could use weapons. The demonstrators then dispersed.<\/p>\n According to some historians and Putin’s own recollections, the event had a significant impact on his worldview, particularly his attitude toward the collapse of state institutions and mass street protests.<\/p>\n 8. Putin returned from Dresden not only with memories, but also with a washing machine that was about 20 years old.<\/strong><\/p>\n After the events of 1989–1990, the Putin family returned from Germany to Leningrad.<\/p>\n According to a historical BBC report, their German neighbors gave the family a washing machine that was about 20 years old at the time. The Putins brought it with them back to the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n 9. His dog literally “interrupted” a meeting between the Russian and German leaders.<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2007, Putin’s large black Labrador, Konni, entered the room where the Russian president was meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.<\/p>\n Putin knew that Merkel was afraid of dogs, yet Konni came right up to her. Years later, Merkel spoke publicly about the incident.<\/p>\n 10. Putin has sometimes celebrated his birthday not in the Kremlin, but in the Siberian taiga.<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2014, on his 62nd birthday, Putin skipped the usual official celebrations and traveled to the remote Siberian taiga, where he spent his birthday.<\/p>\n Reuters reported at the time that it was an unusual and relatively private way for Putin to celebrate his birthday.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrates his birthday on October 7. The Russian head of state has turned 74. Here are 10 little-known facts about him. 1. His grandfather was a cook for both Lenin and Stalin. Vladimir Putin’s grandfather, Spiridon Putin, worked as a cook first for Vladimir Lenin and later for Joseph Stalin. Putin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":303305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303320,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303319\/revisions\/303320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}