Dictator Book Club: Putin

Review of Masha Gessen's "The Man Without A Face"

[previously in series: Erdogan, Modi, Orban, Xi]

I. Vladimir Putin's Childhood As Metaphor For Life

Vladimir Putin appeared on Earth fully-formed at the age of nine.

At least this is the opinion of Natalia Gevorkyan, his first authorized biographer. There were plenty of witnesses and records to every post-nine-year-old stage of Putin's life. Before that, nothing. Gevorkyan thinks he might have been adopted. Putin's official mother, Maria Putina, was 42 and sickly when he was born. In 1999, a Georgian peasant woman, Vera Putina, claimed to be his real mother, who had given him up for adoption when he was ten. Journalists dutifully investigated and found that a "Vladimir Putin" had been registered at her village's school, and that a local teacher remembered him as a bright pupil who loved Russian folk tales. What happened to him? Unclear; Artyom Borovik, the investigative journalist pursuing the story, died in a plane crash just before he could publish. Another investigative journalist, Antonio Russo, took up the story, but "his body was found on the edge of a country road . . . bruised and showed signs of torture, with techniques related to special military services."

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/dictator-book-club-putin