Page 7 - Vladimir Putin: Russia's Autocratic Ruler

Chapter One

From the KGB

to the Kremlin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born in the Soviet city of
Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) on October 7, 1952. An
only child, he was named for his father, Vladimir Spirido-
novich Putin, who worked as a foreman in a metal works
factory. Putin’s mother, Maria Ivanovna, took odd jobs that
she could do at home while caring for their child. Despite
the Soviet Union’s ban on religion, she had her son secretly
baptized as an Orthodox Christian.
In 1952 Leningrad lay mostly in ruins, the result of a
punishing siege eight years before by Hitler’s Nazi armies.
Like their city, Putin’s parents still bore the marks of that
confl ict. Serving in the infantry, his father suffered shrapnel
wounds to both his legs and was left with a painful limp. His
mother nearly died of starvation during the 872-day siege.
Nonetheless, with more than 1 million inhabitants killed in
the city’s ordeal, the Putins considered themselves lucky to
have survived. They shared a rat-infested apartment with
two other families on the top fl oor of a fi ve-story building.
“There were hordes of rats in the front entryway,” Putin re-
calls in his offi cial biography. “My friends and I used to chase
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them around with sticks.” But his family were also given
certain perks that set them apart, including a telephone,
a television, and a dacha (or vacation cottage) outside the
city. Apparently, Putin’s father was on active reserve for the

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