There is something womanly sad in Russia’s new president. Rather, a lack of a male basis. If Yeltsin was clearly an old stallion, who scared women away only because of vodka, then V.V. Putin is a totally asexual type, i.e. not sexual. Whatever threatening statements about doing the terrorists in the shithouse he might do, one gets the impression that he is shy like a girl. Besides his fragile physic, this girly impression he makes is also contributed by his voice. We do not hear from Putin any Yeltsin or Lebedev’s macho roar or the velvet slime of Julio Iglesias. He pronounces everything in an equal, distanced, high voice devoid of emotions. Only rhetoric repetitions (like Kirienko) and pressures are slightly enlivening his speech. Putin does not show any interest in women on TV screens. He is passionless and sterile. It is clear that he is the head of State and we do not have to expect that he will chase women in front of the TV camera. However he should have showed interest a long time ago, with some special smile, or a look. Of course, not for Valentina Matvienko, but for some pretty extras on a reception or on a ski trip. Something must have showed up. Even the frightened Clinton is still visibly animated in the presence of each skirt; one can see this by his shining nose, eyes, and his movements. Nothing of the sort with Putin. Even skiing enthusiast him more than women. In the town of Ivanovo, on March 8th, being present there among the one-hundred-kilo bulks of honorable ladies, Putin looked liked a boy, humanly touched by the attention of these ladies; he even talked about his waddling. But again there was not a gram of sex in this scene, although there were quite sexy ladies in the background.
The soft-spoken, special, passionless and unemotional (even if sometimes he wants to appear emotional) fragile little blond Putin cannot, obviously, serve as a model for the Russian society (like Mussolini, Stalin and Churchill were for their time). Our workers have their own model, the intelligentsia has Yavlinsky, the functionaries have their own fashion; this is over hundred kilos of weight, a gray monolith of a suit, the belly forward, the face larger than the shoulders. The functionaries cannot change to fragile, little refined blonds. I am sure; many of them sadly look at Putin, thinking something similar to the lyrics of a today’s hit: “My boss doesn’t drink or smoke, / It would have been better if he did…” Really, it would have been better. The thing is that if the population saw some male vice in Putin, let’s say he would have been a womanizer, then they would see his humanity. But as it is Putin is strikingly alien. By voting for him, tens of millions of voters overcame their natural repulsion of everything “alien”. In this, we, of course, see the monstrous power of our television; it is hundreds times more powerful than the Orthodox Church and all of Christianity, actually.
Putin did not bring with him any special shirts, pipes, boots, hairdo or special grimaces. The new leader has no attributes at all. The Kremlin’s interior, all these little chairs with legs, sofas and little divans were inherited by Yeltsin, Pavel Borodin and the Albanian Bazhet Pakolli, who rebuilt the Kremlin. Putin does not show any preference for special ties or cotton or wool jackets. His appearance, his “look” is also totally sterile.
However he has some advancement in the area of rhetoric and demagogy. Already Yeltsin started to use nationalist phraseology along the democratic one. Baby-face Kirienko and his “young Turks” have made another step in this direction by calling themselves “Union of Right Forces” and emphasizing the interests of the State. Putin continued the movement in this direction. His pro-governmental party is called “United Russia” and himself he recently almost repeated Goebel’s call “One country, one people”, although the third element was not “one fuehrer”, but one feels that during his stay in Germany officer Putin has read some fundamental books in German. Putin’s style of government: news coverage of his every step – copied from the West. But Putin does not become more familiar from the fact that we see him daily on all sorts of ceremonies, openings, conferences and troops parades. The inauguration ceremony, rather conceited and funny, as it was produced by the monarchist Mikhalkov (maybe it was?) of course, looked strange and alien. But the inauguration is also the confirmation of the same paradoxical process: while staying “reformist” and pretending to be called “democratic”, each new RF regime increases the dose of national demagogy and nationally tainted gestures in the power’s ideology.
In the impassionate voice of a city boy from a quiet family (the kind that are made to wear dresses until the age of ten) Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin daily tells us political banalities that even the Zavtra newspaper is ashamed to publish nowadays. He is too much everywhere. It looks like the masses are not yet regretting that they elected a person totally foreign to them as president. Meanwhile the affairs of the Russian State are not so bright. Soon the country will “celebrate” the sad anniversary of the beginning of the second Chechen war and it is clear that Russia got in this bloody mess for long. In general the situation of the country does not differ from what it was under Yeltsin and the state of our economy depends on the oil prices and Western tips and indulgences to repay our debts to them.
Putin was compared to a black box. As if he was a mystery. No, V. V. Putin is the most non-mysterious man in Russia. Putin is the absence of presence. A sad, lonely, sterile bureaucrat. A conscientious secretary with a notepad. What he lacks is a talented boss.
“My boss doesn’t drink or smoke…
It would have been better if he did…”
THE PRESIDENT’S APPEARANCE
These were impressions from 2000. And here are my impressions of 2005:
He is very short. He can be called a short person. Of a white, northern-Russian Finnish shade. Obviously thin hair, a bold crown. No shin. Rough physionomistics affirm that the absence of a shin shows lack of character. I think it is not always like that. Obviously, because of the absence of shin Vladimir Vladimirovich does not have the best sideview; nose forward, while the front and the shin are drawn back. His mouth is large, the nose is elongated and the nose tip is running into a trefoil. In the last years, apparently from fatigue, there are rings visible under his eyes.
Putin’s entire small figure is unconvincing and insignificant. Made famous by his sportive character, despite his judo and alpine skiing the president still has a visible belly. His legs are short. His shoulders are not large. The president wears too thoroughly sewed suits with a carefully laid out chest. (Nicolas I wore a corset that pressed his stomach. When marquis de Custin wrote about the corset, it offended the imperator more than all the accusations of despotism.)
When talking about unpleasant subjects, Putin tightens his jaws. Muscles show on his cheekbones. The content of the president’s speeches is banal. His voice sounds equal; emotions in his voice are rare. His voice is clearly monotonous.
The president’s wife is overweight, thanks to that she looks older and more matriarchal. Like a duck and the president with her is more of a duckling. It is impossible to adore or to dislike Mrs. Putin actively, like it happens in some countries with a presidential executive or like it was with Raisa Gorbachev. She is clearly not Jaclyn Kennedy and not even Laura Bush. A simple Soviet woman with zero charm.
After thinking about it, I have to admit that the president still has the charm of the youngest son in the family. Although, of course, he is not a popular type. Yeltsin, doubtlessly, was a popular type, even though a disgusting one.
I have spent a lot of time looking at the TV screen, studying the face of the man who rules Russia. This is an evasive face and an evasive look that does not want to meet any other, that does not want to meet our popular looks. If he has the possibility, he hides his look. Watch it yourself. Possibly he is not confident about himself, or he does not want to look at us. Not at you and me concretely, but the TV camera is us.