by Rob Sears
Putin was essentially calling candidate Trump ‘flamboyant’ or a ‘colourful character’. Another translation might be, ‘Oh my god, they’re actually going to elect the clown. It worked!’
Be More Vlad
If someone with unwarrantedly high self-esteem lumbers into your workplace, a well-judged backhanded compliment is a great way to cut them down to size. If they have a hide as thick as Trump’s they may not even notice, but your colleagues will silently thank you for voicing what they were all thinking.
‘If you’re worried about getting away safely after the match you can hide in the back of my car.’
SHELTER A WHISTLEBLOWER
Putin is protector of one of the biggest whistleblowers of all time, Edward Snowden, who has taken refuge in Moscow since 2013.
Sheltering the renegade CIA hacker gives Vlad a chance to dust off his halo and repeat his claim that Russia would never allow mass surveillance systems like the ones revealed by Snowden in the US.
‘Our agents are controlled by law,’ Putin has said, contrasting Russian operatives with American. ‘[In Russia you] have to get court permission to put an individual under surveillance.’15
Be More Vlad
Finding your own whistleblower may be easier than you think. Maybe you have a friend who works at the off-licence and confessed that the special offer Bordeaux was never actually sold at full price. Or a colleague who revealed to everyone that Julie spent more than the maximum £5 on her Secret Santa present last year.
Set up your crate outside the town hall and make a big speech defending these heroes of liberty, and you can enjoy the same feeling of moral righteousness that comes from sheltering a Snowden.
‘“Fat old daddy”, eh? Don’t forget we have a baby monitor.’
BE A GOOD LISTENER
Gone are the days when the KGB planted pea-sized listening devices inside walls and suitcases. For one thing, the technology has moved on. For another, a whole range of government agencies are now getting in on the act.
Under Putin’s watch, eight different security organisations can access a countrywide system called SORM, similar to that used in the States, to pick up on any phone and internet conversation. Unsurprisingly it’s been ruled in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Be More Vlad
Such legal niceties don’t really apply to individuals like Putin and you, though, and the fact is, the more you can listen in to colleagues’ private conversations, the greater your advantage. Set up camp in a cubicle in the office loos and note down any overheard basin talk.
It may take a few days of eating your packed lunch in less than salubrious surroundings, but eventually you’re sure to overhear an incriminating secret that you can use as leverage with HR (for example, if asked to explain why you’re never at your desk any more and always hanging around the fifth-floor toilets).
‘Can you walk even slower? I want my girlfriend to see me helping you.’
HELP THE AGED
Key to Putin’s popularity is his appeal to older Russians, such as Steven Seagal.
The actor and martial arts hero is among a handful of ageing former stars who have pledged their loyalty to Vlad and been rewarded with Russian passports.
Seagal called his citizenship a great honour, to which Putin said he hoped their ‘personal relationship will remain and continue’.16
Other useful celeb friends he has cultivated include tax exile Gérard Depardieu and big-screen fighters Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke.
Be More Vlad
Putin may have identified a gap in the market that you can also exploit. Why not set up a retirement home for macho film stars nearing the end of their lives? You could dress the nurses as an admiring movie crew to make them feel at home; stage their medical consultations as press junkets; and screen slo-mo explosions on the TVs so they can walk away from them without looking back, just as they used to do in younger, happier days.
YOU TO THE POWER OF PUTIN
‘He’s calling himself Chief Refuse Officer these days.’
DRESS FOR POWER
You’ll never find a picture of Putin looking dishevelled, and that’s not just due to the natural survival instincts of press photographers. He knows better than most that power is all about looking the part, using event-appropriate outfits to show he’s always prepared and immaculate laundering to project total self-control.
Be More Vlad
Ambitious fashionistas wishing to create a Putinesque power wardrobe should start with a selection of sharp suits (Putin favours Italian fashion house Brioni, but if you do the same, you may only be able to afford the buttons).
From there, invest in at least one of each of the following: a full camo wetsuit in case your pals show up unexpectedly to take you spearfishing; a fur-lined jacket and fur astrakhan hat for touring your local spaceport at the weekends; a sporty black nylon blouson for when the local biker gang makes you an honorary member; a fetching snow-white jumpsuit for piloting your microglider; and army trousers for all those after-hours horse-riding trips (matching top not required).
‘My real name’s Brian but everyone calls me the Viper.’
GET YOUR OWN CODENAME
At the Red Banner spy school, nobody knew who Vladimir Putin was. Cadets were given codenames in preparation for infiltrating foreign countries, with their true identities kept a secret even from each other. So it was that Putin took the unassuming name of Platov.
It appears Comrade Platov never got to go on a real undercover mission, but just knowing he was becoming a proper spy must have felt pretty thrilling. As a boy, Vlad had dreamed of becoming a real-life Major Belov17 (a Russian equivalent of James Bond). Decades later, as president, he was also able to impress a bunch of schoolkids by finally revealing his codename at a Q&A.
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To experience the frisson of a double life for yourself, all you need is the price of a latte. Just go into Starbucks and give your name as Secret Simon, Greg Ulysses (Spy), the Man with the Disobedient Schnauzer, Mark Fake, Yuri Spyalot, or Agent 3,182. Your barista is 90% likely to humour you by writing it on your cup.
‘Here’s 50p, and here are the deeds to my house.’
TRUST YOUR FINANCES TO A MUSICIAN
You could put your money in the local building society – but wouldn’t you rather copy Putin and entrust it to an arcane offshore scheme run by an old musician pal?18
Sergei Roldugin is a pro cellist and one of Putin’s oldest friends. The pair ran around St Petersburg together and Sergei even acted as Putin’s wingman while Vlad got to know that ‘cute girl Luda’19 (the future Mrs Putin).
Roldugin claims he lives a simple musician’s life and doesn’t have millions. According to the Panama Papers investigation, however, he controls a group of companies that engage in all kinds of baffling seven-figure transactions. Financial experts speculate that the maze-like set-up is intended to conceal Putin’s personal fortune, which has been estimated at up to $200 billion.20
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With this amount of cash sloshing around it’s easy to see why he’d need a friend with a great big cello case to move it around in. Assuming you’re considerably below Putin on the rich list, you may be able to run a similar scheme by befriending a local viola player, or even a morally compromised trianglist.
‘This is Professor Anand, the real genius behind
“What I did on my holidays” and “When I grow up I want to be an astronaut”.’
HIRE A GHOSTWRITER
You’d have to be pretty smart to write a dissertation titled ‘Strategic Planning of the Reproduction of the Mineral Resource Base of a Region under Conditions of the Formation of Market Relations’. But even smarter not to.
It’s alleged that Putin’s doctoral thesis, obtained at age forty-four from the St Petersburg Mining University, was in fact the work of the university’s rector, Vladimir Litvinenko.21
Normally Litvinenko charged for this illegal service,
but he’s said to have written Putin’s for free after the rising politician helped him get his job. (It’s questionable how good a job he did, as more than sixteen pages of the thesis were taken word for word from an American textbook.22)
Be More Vlad
If your CV is a bit thin, consider hiring a professional ghostwriter to nab you a postgrad qualification. The thesis they write for you will most likely be sections copied and pasted from other books, linked by stretches of gibberish. But if Putin’s case is anything to go by, nobody will bother to actually read it until you’ve been running the country for years. And by that time you should be just about scandal-proof.
‘Sure, I was speeding but what about the brutal treatment of native American populations in the 1830s?’
PRACTISE WHATABOUTISM
Whataboutism (noun): a brazen move from the heyday of Soviet propaganda, in which criticism is met by changing the subject.
Or as Gary Kasparov puts it in his book, Winter is Coming, it is ‘a way for Russian bureaucrats to “respond” to criticism of Soviet massacres, forced deportations and gulags with “What about how you Americans treated the Native Americans and slaves?” or something similar.’23
Whataboutism has made a comeback in Putin’s Russia and is a favourite tool of both Putin’s online hordes and the man himself. Challenged in 2004 about the annexation of Crimea, Putin brought up the annexation of Texas in 184524 – perhaps not entirely germane.
Be More Vlad
To use whataboutism in your life, keep a mental list of the sins of others so you always have a counter-accusation on hand when accused of wrongdoing. And should anyone challenge you on your rampant whataboutism, just remind them how many slave labourers needlessly died during the construction of the Great Wall of China.
‘Can someone help me, I think I’ve pulled my psoas.’
MANSPREAD
‘There’s an expression – we certainly know it in New York – called manspreading. Every time I met with him, it would be . . . the whole deal.’25
The words of Hillary Clinton, sounding traumatised as she recalls experiencing Putin’s body language during official meetings.
Vlad might be a natural manspreader, but it’s equally possible it’s a learned tactic. Putin took classes, along with other rising politicians in post-Soviet Russia, from ‘Mr Body Language’, an Australian relationship guru.26
Be More Vlad
Mr Body Language would tell you that you don’t have to be a man to dominate a space in an unladylike way. Simply visualise a couple of grapefruits between your thighs. Even if you’re called out for manspreading by the local Hillaries, they’ll know deep in their caveperson hearts that you must be a big beast, whose reproductive parts need airflow and who deserves to rule over the tribe till someone even more bow-legged comes along.
‘Table for one, please, and make sure the waiters know it’s my birthday.’
GO IT ALONE
As a rule, politicians like to be shown surrounded by an adoring fan club, but Putin is cut from a different cloth.
His 2018 reinauguration included staged coverage of his day as he reviewed papers alone, inspected a military parade alone and strode down red-carpeted corridors alone. Characteristically, he seemed content to have no family to support him, no predecessors to advise him and no allies to succeed him. Even his highest-ranking colleagues were pictured corralled behind a velvet rope.
Be More Vlad
Projecting solitary strength as Putin does is a fine art. Not having any friends is easy; the hard part is never letting on how terribly lonely you are.
No matter how much you yearn to join the office lunch club or latest in-joke, you must stay cool, aloof and above it all. You can always hold your own hand for solace as you weep in bed later. (Something you may need to do more and more as you perfect your self-reliant act.)
‘Come in, Jon. I see you’ve brought round another bottle of your broccoli wine.’
INDULGE IN SOME LIGHT TROLLING
It appears as though Putin likes to blow off steam by trolling the Americans with the help of the Putinka vodka brand.
The award-winning super premium spirit, which plays off Putin’s name and popularity, made a genius move in 2014 when it became official sponsor of the US women’s bobsled team at the Winter Olympics.27
The team said they accepted Putinka’s backing due to a lack of domestic funding. But because Putinka is the product of a Russian state-owned distillery, America could arguably be said to have allowed the Kremlin to co-opt a key part of its Olympic effort – definitely a first in the two nations’ long sporting rivalry.
Be More Vlad
Trolling your enemies like Putinka couldn’t be easier. Just invite them to sample your hideous homemade parsnip liquor, as if it tastes of something other than leftover pickle juice, cat spray, and parsnips.
‘That meditation app must really be working, darling, all your wrinkles have gone!’
FIX THE BAGS UNDER YOUR EYES
Who says there are no new faces in Russian politics?
Following a ten-day vanishing act in 2011, Putin was seen wearing what looked like make-up over a black eye. Was he covering up fresh plastic surgery? Tabloids claimed that before/after photos showed a fuller, tauter face.
The new look suited him well: after all, why would someone who is 100% confident of every decision they’ve ever made have worry lines?
Be More Vlad
If you’d like to show your mastery over the process of ageing, ask for a Full Putin at your nearest cosmetic clinic. They’ll understand you’re in a stressful job and want to project statesmanlike calm at all times. Locked in your new Botox bubble, you’ll never again betray your panic with a trembling upper lip or eyelid twitch. In fact, from now on you won’t be able to change your expression at all.
‘MumDadIt’sMeStuartI’mGay!’
USE THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE
Putin is in a line of leaders dating back to Sun Tzu who use unpredictability and surprise to wrong-foot their opponents (and populaces).
Whether venturing into Ukraine without so much as a press conference, or revealing a military shake-up that his own top brass had no idea was coming, the man sometimes known as the Grey Cardinal holds his cards close until he plays them. By not giving anyone time to take stock, he’s able to control the news cycle and leave others spluttering.
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You can try out this tactic if you want to introduce new company policies that you don’t technically speaking have the authority to introduce. Try running stark naked through the office when you’re supposed to be away on holiday, yelling through a loudhailer, ‘It’s nudist Wednesday! Nudist Wednesdays are a thing now!’, then sprint out of the office before security can catch you.
Sing out your lines with enough gusto, and the sheer surprise factor may be enough to disorient your colleagues into arriving at work au naturel next Wednesday, and every Wednesday thereafter.
‘If you say I’m thin-skinned one more time, so help me god . . .’
SILENCE YOUR CRITICS
Saying what you think in Putin’s Russia takes nerve.
Some of his noisiest critics have ended up six feet under, with commentators speculating that Putin ordered the killings28 (though one man, Donald Trump, insists uncharacteristically on innocent until proven guilty in this case). The dead include Anna Politkovskaya, author of Putin’s Russia (victim of a $150k hit job in 2006); Natalya Estemirova, who reported on the Chechnyan war (kidnapped, shot and dumped in the woods in 2009); Yuri Shchekochikhin, who wrote about organised crime and corruption (died suddenly of a mysterious illness in 2003); and Boris Nemtsov, who led street rallies against Putin (shot four times in the back in 2015).
Be More Vlad
If anyone says something hurtful about you, why not murder them with words instead? Incredibly sassy and lethal retorts you could try include: ‘There’s no need to repeat yourself, I ignored you just fine the first time’, ‘I liked you better
before you spoke’, or ‘Keep rolling your eyes, maybe you’ll find a brain back there.’
‘Another ten years of this and I thought
I’d have a crack at being UN Secretary General.’
BIDE YOUR TIME
Putin spent much of his career as a relatively junior KGB officer, collecting press clippings in Dresden, far from the real action. Back then nobody would have figured him as a future leader. Nobody had heard of him, in fact.
Yet the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a succession of opportunities in Moscow, and at forty-six he was unexpectedly picked as new director of the FSB.
Be More Vlad
If you feel you’re going nowhere and not getting any younger, remember Putin’s example and hang on in there. A new historical epoch may be just around the corner and with it a totally new set of opportunities for someone with your particular skill set.
(Let’s just hope the post-revolution landscape has special need for an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Grand Theft Auto universe, really quite fast two-fingered typing and the ability to tell the colour of M&Ms through taste alone.)
‘Well, the pilot will have to turn around then, won’t he?’
MAKE OTHERS WORK TO YOUR SCHEDULE
Putin is a night person, which means those who deal with him have to be night people, too. By the time he gets into his office after swimming and working out, it’s already afternoon, which means many of his Kremlin meetings aren’t even scheduled to start till after midnight.
