vladimir putin

Putinphilia: The Secret American Subculture of Putin-Worshippers

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The Russian president Vladimir Putin has a number of fans in the United States—who see him as the very epitome of macho manliness. The National Journal digs in:

Putinphilia is not, of course, the predominant position of the conservative movement. But in certain corners of the Internet, adoration for the leader of America’s No. 1 frenemy is unexceptional. They are not his countrymen, Russian expats, or any of the other regional allies you might expect to find allied with the Russian leader. Some, like Young and his readers, are earnest outdoorsy types who like Putin’s Rough Rider sensibility. Others more cheekily admire Putin’s cult of masculinity and claim relative indifference to the political stances—the anti-Americanism, the support for leaders like Bashar al-Assad, the oppression of minorities, gays, journalists, dissidents, independent-minded oligarchs—that drive most Americans mad. A few even arrive at their Putin admiration through a strange brew of antipathy to everything they think President Obama stands for, a reflexive distrust of what the government and media tells them, and political beliefs that go unrepresented by either of the main American political parties.

They utterly perplex many observers of the Russian-American relationship. “No clue as to what drives it, other than some form of illness,” says Russian-born novelist Gary Shteyngart, author ofAbsurdistan.

There are many faux Putin fans in America—those who mock the hero worship ironically or half-ironically. But plenty of his fans are serious. Three months ago, Americans for Putin, a Facebook group, sprang up “for Americans who admire many of the policies and the leadership style of Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin” and think he “sounds better than the Republicrat establishment.” The group has an eight-point policy platform calling for “a unified [American] national culture,” a “firm stance against Israeli imperialism,” and an opposition to the political correctness it says dominates Washington…

When you see the kinds of things Putin has been photographed doing, you do have to wonder if some of these people do, in fact, appreciate the man for what he stands for (aww).

Is Vladimir Putin the Richest Man on Earth?

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An interesting report at Bloomberg on the wealth that Vladimir Putin has accumulated via his stakes in Russian companies like Gazprom and Surgutneftegaz:

The media reports, which often cite one another, ultimately tend to rely on one primary source: a November 2007 interview given by a prominent member of Moscow’s chattering classes, Stanislav Belkovsky, to the German daily Die Welt. In the interview, he claimed that Putin “controlled” 37 percent of the oil company Surgutneftegaz and 4.5 percent of natural gas monopoly Gazprom. The $40 billion estimate of Putin’s fortune was simply the 2007 market price of these stakes.

“And these numbers are substantiated?” Die Welt journalist Manfred Quiring asked. “These numbers are correct,” Belkovsky replied, and that was that.

Interviewers regularly ask Belkovsky about the $40 billion number. “That figure could now have changed, I believe at the level of $60-70 billion,” Belkovsky told Maeve McClenaghan of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

There has never been the slightest bit of evidence that Putin actually owns stakes in Surgutneftegaz or Gazprom. The Western journalists using Belkovsky as a source either do not know who he is or print his allegations simply because they are colorful. “What game Mr. Belkovsky is playing — and on whose behalf — is unclear,” the Telegraph of London warned in a story copiously citing Belkovsky’s allegations.

If the upper tier estimates are true, then Vladimir Putin may be as rich (or even richer) than Bill Gates, whose estimated worth is around $70 billion.