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Putin Faces Few Personal Questions
June 24, 2002
By JUDITH INGRAM
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin deftly fielded questions Monday ranging from Russia's all-out campaign to join the World Trade Organization to ways to end vote-buying in far-flung regions. But unlike previous Kremlin news conferences, Putin was not asked about his sports regimen or pet dogs.
Support for the former KGB operative runs high across this vast country, but public curiosity about him, more than two years into his presidency, has greatly diminished. Reporters, thus, spent less time probing Putin's personal life and left him groping for openings to personalize the question-and-answer session.
``My great advantage is that up to now, I can feel how the rank-and-file citizen lives,'' Putin said Monday, when asked whether he gets any feedback from the Russian people. ``I have lived in the presidential residence for two years but for almost 30 years ... I lived in a communal apartment in St. Petersburg.''
Communal arrangements are a single apartment in which several families share one kitchen and one bath.
Putin's image has been transformed from that of a mysterious, somewhat retiring former KGB agent to the ubiquitous head of state. His portraits adorn ambitious bureaucrats' walls, teenagers' T-shirts and even painted Easter eggs.
Putin has become as familiar as the guy next door, even though very little still is known about his private life, other than that he is abstemious - shunning cigarettes and hard liquor - and has a love of martial arts. He holds a black belt in judo and co-authoring a book on the martial art he has practiced since age 13. He also says he swims daily.
Last year, Putin said his family had three dogs, including a Black Labrador, and was shown playing with the dogs during his election campaign.
If anything, Putin may be overexposed to the point of developing a cult of personality. There are Putin busts, Putin board games, a Putin cafe featuring VVP cookies - stamped with the president's initials. His approval ratings are a nearly constant 70 percent.
Responding to a reporter's query about what she called the ``Putinization'' of the whole country, the president said he disapproved but could not do much about it.
``Russian bureaucrats are inventive. There are certain state symbols - the flag, the hymn, and to some extent the president is also a symbol of state, not personified, but the post,'' Putin said. ``Up to a certain point you can agree to portraits and so on, but everything should be in moderation.''
He became impatient when a foreign reporter asked which members of Russia's political elite supported him.
``The people,'' Putin snapped. ``That's enough.''
For all the rarity of his once-a-year encounter with the press, Putin's policy views need little additional publicity. His views are widely propagated daily on state-controlled television in lengthy broadcasts of his speeches and meetings with underlings. The Kremlin press service works hard to get Putin's message out.
Having pressed his case with foreign leaders on Russia's effort to be admitted into the WTO by 2004, Putin turned to domestic critics of the campaign Monday, who fear stiff competition once protective tariffs are dropped.
``To stay outside the framework of this process is dangerous and stupid,'' Putin said bluntly.
On Chechnya, Putin said that the current practice of so-called mopping-up operations - when troops forcefully search for people suspected of rebel ties, beating and detaining them at will - should be ended once and for all. But he said that would be possible only after Chechen authorities take firm control of the region - a process he said might be completed next year.
He said preparations also were under way for a referendum on a Chechen constitution in 2003 - a further step toward normalization in the war-ravaged republic. He did not comment on the continuing fighting in Chechnya.
The closest reporters got to a personal question Monday concerned the apparently increasing distance between Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin - the leader credited with launching Putin's rise to power by anointing him successor.
``I head the country today, and I take political responsibility for its condition now and in the future,'' Putin said. ``We respect the first president, we listen to his opinions, and take them into account in making decisions. But we act on our own.''
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