Putin’s eternal reign

Trump, Biden will die. Putin will still be in power. Most probably.

I find it fascinating trying to comprehend this part of modern history we’re living through.

Putin came to power in 1999. I was still a teenager then. I had just finished school. I was studying in England, but spending my summer break in Moscow, my home city. I met my girlfriend then — now my dear wife of more than 20 years. She’s a little younger than me so she too was a teenager of course.

My parents were younger then than I am now. My oldest son is now approaching college. Now imagine if you were born in Russia in the late 1990s. If Putin is part of my identity (whether I like him or not!) — think of them. He’s is at the same level at Mommy and Daddy for them.

I remember exactly how Putin appeared on Russia’s political scene. In early September of 1999, there was a series of explosions in Russia — terrorist attacks linked to the war in Chechnya. They reduced residential buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities to rubble, killing hundreds of people. Terror was knocking at the door of our homes. During those very days, I was going through another terrifying situation of a more personal nature about which I wrote recently (Kidnapping of my father). I had to stay at home day and night and watched a lot of TV. It was then when I, along with the rest of the country, saw Putin for the first time. As a freshly appointed prime minister and a new face in Russian politics, he was commenting on the attacks, and I was stunned by his brisk promise to “wipe out terrorists in the outhouse” if need be. It was the first of many times Putin exercised his signature rhetoric, relying heavily on the toilet-sewage-genitalia theme. He sounded bold, kind of down-to-earth you can say, and decisive. A new Russia — Putin’s Russia — was being born in those early fall days of 1999, although no one could yet foresee the ex-KGB officer’s meteoric rise to power.

Then Yeltsin resigned on the final day of 1999 and effectively endorsed Putin as his successor (I wrote about this here). The rest is history.

Putin ruled for two terms during 2000–2008. Then he was Prime Minister under Medvedev. That was an arrangement to optically abide by the constitution that barred him from a third consecutive presidential term. Medvedev was a puppet. Well, at some point there was hope — I personally thought there was a chance — that Medvedev could do something crazy and cement his role in history books — fire Putin…