Vladimir Putin
Page 4
‘Morning, everyone, I thought it was time you all got a look at my fantastic navel.’
SHOW OFF YOUR BEST FEATURE
An estimated forty-eight inches in circumference, Putin’s chest is widely regarded as a Eurasian marvel. To not get it out periodically, as Putin has done while riding a horse, pole fishing, swimming butterfly stroke and so on, would be unfair to both Russia and the world.
The famous chest isn’t just a side of prime ribs either; it tells the people that Putin is a man of vigour and iron will, a world away from the flab and drunkenness of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.
‘How can one not vote for such a torso?’ Moscow tabloid MK asked,34 somewhat sardonically.
Be More Vlad
If there’s a feature you’re especially proud of, get it out for your workmates to see – whether it’s a broad upper back that suggests you’re ready to take on new responsibilities; toned calves that promise you’re in it for the long run; or a shapely set of kneecaps that somehow bespeak proficiency in Microsoft Office.
‘I’ll have my usual tea, Sandra, and could you put it in my manager’s goblet?’
DISPLAY YOUR STATUS
‘Ponty’ is slang for Russia’s elaborate system of status symbols and there’s no better example than Moscow’s ‘special highway’.
The eight-lane route links the Kremlin with Putin’s residence in the woods. But instead of a central reservation, there is a ninth lane that only a tiny number of ultra-privileged Muscovites can use.
The median lane is of such fascination that local status-watchers note down every vehicle and VIP using it. Of course, traffic is only shut off completely for Putin himself, as well as for his prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, which must make them both feel pretty special.
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If your company culture runs on ponty, consider having your colleagues carry you around in a sedan chair with a personalised number plate. You could even get them to carry you to the posh supermarket to stock up on organic crackers and those ready meals that come in a sort of basket.
You are extra special, and deserve never to be confronted with the terrifying thought that you might not be.
‘28 . . . 29 . . . 30. And that’s why you should give me a job building spreadsheets.’
HIT THE GYM
Of all Putin’s strengths as a leader, his strength may be the strongest of all.
Even in his sixties, he takes working out as seriously as his grip on power, lifting weights with his political comrades in a Loro Piana tracksuit retailing for $3,200, then swimming for two hours every single day. How reassuring for the Russian people to know that their leader could whup Donald Trump in a brawl, as well as geopolitically.
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If you want to win trust in your workplace it’s well worth developing a fighting physique like Vlad’s. It lets your colleagues know that even in the event of a second Cold War and ensuing apocalypse, you have the brute strength to defend them from marauding gangs, gather fuel and drag infected bodies to be incinerated, with energy left over to prepare for that big Q2 sales conference.
‘Hannah from Finance doesn’t wash her hands, and that’s not all I could tell you.’
GATHER ‘KOMPROMAT’ ON YOUR ENEMIES
Putin and his people are known as apparent masters of incriminating material, like the video of Russia’s prosecutor general with two prostitutes that helped clear the way for Putin’s rapid ascent in the nineties.
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You can do something similar to get ahead at your workplace. Try baking a lovely chocolate cake and bringing it in to your office. Notice which of your colleagues take two slices, and who’s left with none, then draw a sketch of what happened on a Post-it note.
You’ve just created strategic leverage over the greedy co-worker – and the chance to instil a grudge in the hungry one.
With power moves of this calibre, you’ll soon be one of the most formidable figures in regional sales.
‘You’re welcome and since I’ve held the door for you a few times now, I was wondering if you might help me repaint my bathroom this weekend?’
ACCUMULATE ‘BLAT’
‘Blat’ is the informal network of favours and connections among Soviet elites, and Putin was a master at it. He got his first big Moscow job through blat, thanks to two contacts he’d schmoozed in the halls of St Petersburg.35
Blat remains a vital currency in today’s Russia if you want to get things done. Fortunately, Putin can top up his blat current account by handing out valuable contracts. It’s a case of ‘I scratch your back; you give me rights to build parallel bridges over the Kerch Strait.’
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If you’d like to grow a power base in your little corner of the world, you’ll need to accumulate some blat of your own. That means making sure the favours you do are remembered. Why not create readymade blat cards to hand out to people, with messages such as: ‘[Insert name here] just offered you a biscuit’, ‘Remember that time [Insert name here] lent you her umbrella?’ or ‘[Insert name here] fed your goldfish that time. What will you do for [Insert name here]?’.
‘Insects! Bow down before your new assistant floor manager!’
SHOW PEOPLE WHO’S IN CHARGE
When a factory closed in Pikalevo in 2009, townspeople were left unwaged and angry. They blocked highways, occupied the mayor’s office and went on hunger strike.
To stop the spreading chaos, Putin travelled to the little town to give the managers responsible a bollocking for the ages. With cameras looking on, he compared them to cockroaches.
‘Give me back my pen,’36 he snarled, after making the chief cockroach sign a statement of culpability.
By the time he’d finished, millions in back wages had flowed into workers’ bank accounts and Vlad had proved that he alone could fix the people’s problems.
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If you find your household in disarray during the summer holidays, wrest back control of the situation Putin-style by shouting at the cat so eloquently and forcefully that the other members of your family have to sit up and take notice. The cat won’t really mind and everyone else will finally comprehend that it’s really not a good idea to mess with you right now.
‘You do realise couscous was invented by Mossad?’
LOOK OUT FOR CONSPIRACIES
Putin seemingly sees enemy spooks everywhere, believing their influence and money bags are the hidden reason behind everything that goes wrong for him.
Evidence of possible paranoid tendencies includes his apparent belief that the internet is a CIA project that Russians need to be protected from,37 and the recent expansion of his food and drink tasting team in case of poisoning attempts.38
Neurotic maybe, but from a man who’s survived peak CIA/KGB skulduggery in the Cold War, as well as multiple assassination attempts, not exactly surprising.
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Though you may have less reason to fear hidden forces than Putin, a touch of paranoia could be your friend. After all, being overly relaxed about outlandish possibilities never saved anyone from being attacked by the lizard people who live inside the walls.
‘He’s a truly terrible accountant but you have to give him points for style.’
BE A WILD CHILD
Putin is seldom upstaged, so when new president Barack Obama visited Moscow to global fanfare in 2009, he went into full-on attention-seeking mode.
Dressed in black, Putin rode out before the crowds on a Harley Davidson trike, closely followed by his pals the Night Wolves, an 11,000-strong nationalist motorcycle gang led by a very nice man called ‘the Surgeon’.39
Images of Bad Vlad leading the gang got almost as much coverage as Obama’s big speech the same week. Mission accomplished?
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When your oh-so-perfect sister comes home for Christmas, all glowing from her volunteer medical work in Africa, you know you can’t out-virtue her. So steal her limelight Putin-style instead. You c
ould dress in fishnets and invite some random guys from the scrapyard to join your family’s Christmas dinner. Tell your parents they’re your ‘husbands for the holidays’ and the way they smell makes you feel like an animal in the best way.
Let’s face it, your mum and dad will never love you the best, but at least showing your wild side will get you some of their attention.
ADVANCED REPUTATION HACKING
‘MUM! Dad’s sellotaped a picture of his face to the TV again.’
DOMINATE THE MEDIA
The Vladimir Putin Show has such a hold on Russian media that it’s hard for anyone else to get a look in.
Quickly after he became president, Putin had security forces raid independent station NTV.40 Papers were removed, debts called in, and pretty soon NTV had been taken over by a state-owned conglomerate.
Today, most of the big channels are state-controlled, including Channel One, Russia One and RT.41 Few independent news agencies can scratch a living and even fewer will challenge the core tenets of Putin’s political system.
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It might seem unthinkable that you could dominate people’s media consumption to the degree Putin does, but with today’s social media, it’s possible. Start uploading videos of yourself striking power poses, intercut with stock footage of worshipful crowds. Repeat this incessantly enough and you can drown out the kitten and baby photos and trap your friends in a hall of mirrors with you and your glorious opinions around every corner.
Soon your propaganda will take hold and you’ll have an adoring online army at your command (at least, if they don’t all block you first).
‘Babe, you did it, congratulations! Listen, any idea when the free bar ends tonight? I need to book a taxi.’
KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE A PARTY
One of Putin’s canny decisions was to quit the KGB and distance himself from the Communist Party at just the moment the Soviet collapse became inevitable. His well-timed leap, on 20 August 1991, landed him on the right side of history without him appearing like too much of a revolutionary (important at a time when most Russians craved stability).
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Timing your exit from a big party could be equally crucial. You want to be there for the best nibbles, Instagrammable moments and at least the first bit of dancing. But you want to leave before it all falls apart, Soviet-style. If the other guests begin a heated discussion about which bit of your anatomy would be best for doing cocaine out of, for example, it’s time to get out of there.
‘Neighbour, it was me who keyed your car. I’ve been feeling awful about it but now I’ve told you we can all move on.’
CONFESS BEFORE YOU’RE FOUND OUT
In the early nineties, Putin’s secret KGB past had become a liability. A link to the loathed organisation was a blackmail risk in the new Russia and could have seriously damaged Vlad’s career as an up-and-coming political aide.
So he decided to defuse the ticking time bomb by orchestrating a confession on TV. Carefully rehearsed and helped by a heroic soundtrack, he came clean on his own terms and managed to make himself sound less like a hated internal repressor and more like an international man of mystery.
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If you’re living with a secret that’s bound to come out, limit the damage and confess as Vlad did. You probably won’t be able to arrange a TV interview, so write your secret on a T-shirt and dance around in the background of a live news report instead. It’ll feel good to get your secret off your chest, and who knows, maybe your main family and secret family will get along just fine.
‘Sorry to leave the party early, guys.
I have to take this injured bee to the vet.’
SHOW YOUR GENTLE SIDE
To win respect you must be ruthless. To win love you need to show a softer side. Putin’s approach is to help his country’s cutest animals at every opportunity.
He’s been photographed feeding a baby elk outside Moscow; rehabilitating cranes in Siberia; releasing rescued tigers back into the wild in Amur Oblast; and shaking hands with a walrus in Vladivostok.
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If you’re known as a workplace meanie, show your colleagues you’re actually quite nice by booking a day off and hiring a professional photographer to join you on a trip to the petting zoo. Then share the photos far and wide with plenty of squidgy emoticons. Be sure to wait at least twenty minutes before returning to your hardass persona.
(Note that while at the zoo you may wish to avoid Putin’s other habit of kissing small children’s bellies. Some things only presidents get away with.)
‘I love a giggle as much as the next person, but anyone who laughs at my new hat is fired with immediate effect.’
STAMP OUT MOCKERY
Putin knows that jokes can be a serious threat to his power and he’ll go to great lengths to stop them.
In 2000 his team is said to have quickly had an unflattering puppet of him removed from the satirical TV programme Kukly .42 More recently an infamous meme of him with rouged lips and painted eyelashes was on a list of 4,074 banned ‘extremist materials’.43
Since the list was made public, the ‘Putin gay clown’ image (extremist item number 4,071) has been viewed millions of times, despite concerned internet users around the world tweeting the image with clear instructions not to share. We can only imagine how much worse things would have been if the Kremlin had taken a less firm line.
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If you’re fed up of jokes at your expense, follow Putin’s strategy and make a list. If you’re a teacher, write out all the unacceptable nicknames your pupils call you and stick them up on giant posters around the school. This way, the troublemakers will know exactly what they’re not allowed to say and you can reclaim the respect and courtesy to which you’re entitled.
‘Lisa was a wonderful woman who, just before she died, confessed she had been online gambling using my identity.’
BLAME THE DEAD
Another ploy Putin has used is to find someone to blame who can’t respond (at least in this world).
Anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky collected evidence that law enforcement officials had stolen $230m in tax money. But instead of investigating, the authorities levelled the fraud charges at Magnitsky himself.
At the time of his jailing he was a healthy thirty-six- year-old. A year later, he was discovered dead in his cell, plagued with untreated medical problems and bruised from beatings.
Charges were brought against him anyway – the first time a deceased person has been put on trial in Russian history.44
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Although people who’ve moved on from your workplace are not strictly speaking dead, pinning blame on them is a useful way to draw a line under a problem. Wasn’t it Sandra, who used to work in the canteen, for example, who embezzled all that training money and stank up the men’s toilets? Yes, it was definitely her. Until Ajay from Operations leaves and then it’ll be his fault.
‘Young lady, I’ve garnered opinion and everyone agrees that your piercings are disgusting.’
STAND WITH THE MORAL MAJORITY
Who will speak for all the right-thinking citizens out there? Putin does, and you can too.
Punk band Pussy Riot are among the best-known resisters in Russia thanks to their mediagenic protest art. In 2013 they were imprisoned for ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’ after singing an anti-Putin song called ‘Holy Shit’ in a Moscow cathedral. Their treatment was heavily criticised in the West but many Russians thought they got what they deserved, regarding the performance as an affront to the Church.
Grasping this, Putin weighed in strongly, saying ‘They got what they asked for . . . One must not erode our moral foundation and undermine the country’.45
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You too can take a courageous stance on a current issue based on what others think. For example, next time someone makes a joke about a recent tragedy (dead musician, terror attack, cancellation of TV show), ask yourself:
was that ‘too soon’? Read the room – if you see pursed lips or shaking heads, now’s the time to speak up, flounce out and score some brownie points with the moral majority.
‘Okay, guys, I want you all to forget about next week’s lay-offs – today is about fun!’
HOLD A SPORTS DAY
Ever since the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Russian people have been waiting for a great leader to bring back the Games and restore Russia to its rightful place atop the international rostrum.
The Sochi 2014 Winter Games were Putin’s chance. He flung money at them to ensure success, in the end splashing out $51 billion.46 That’s more than any Olympics in history and five times more than the 2018 World Cup, but worth it to show everyone what Russia is capable of.
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If you feel your neighbours aren’t giving you the respect and admiration you’re due, invite them all to a no-expense-spared sports day in your street.
Yes, it will be a mad race to get everything ready. Yes, you’ll have to max out your credit cards to bribe the woman from the council to let you close the street. Yes, the portaloos will overflow and your housemates won’t be happy when you present them with an enormous surprise bill for their share of the cost. Yes, yes, yes.
But it’ll all be worth it when those hypocrites across the road have to admit you put on the best welly wang ever.