Vlad-i-mir!
Notoriously hungry for attention, he's at it again. Odd, that it has never yet occurred to him to climb the Himalaya. Mount Everest calls and Vladimir Putin remains oblivious. Disconcerting, to say the least. The siren call of true adventure seems not to be all that attractive to this doughty man of the world, this avowed nature lover, this man dedicated to buoyant self-advertising.His exploits to date have been many and varied. The admiration that the Russian people have for their ruler is boundless. He is not only their prime minister, their past-president, past-past prime minister, but their strongman, as of old. He exemplifies the Russian spirit of the Steppes, a modern-day Attila, but refined and reliable to the core, however unpredictable.
Who but their hero would ride a stallion on the Steppes of Russia, bare-chested and proud? Who communes with the eagles, the hunting falcons, the wolves, the ghosts of the past, but he?
And, now, on to other exploits to demonstrate his fearless and ferocious stalwartness. In the coming episode of Vladimir-the-Great, not to be confused to Vladimir-the-Impaler, he will assume a mantle of Steward of Nature. Oh yes, he's done that before, that's right. When he tranquilized a wild tiger (not so wild, after all, but zoo-born and -raised, but why quibble?).
What's in the planning stages is his participation in the Flight of Hope project whose purpose it is to pattern a flock of cranes, raised in captivity, to take hem toward warmer southern climes.
The photographs that will ensue will prompt international awards, no doubt. And that will result in a lovely scrapbook that Mr. Putin will be able to scroll through, reminiscing in his dotage. He can look back on having recovered two ancient Greek urns, diving at an archaeological site on the Black Sea last year. (Those, ahum, were the amphora planted for 'discovery'.)
And to spoil it all there's always someone lingering in the background, prepared to spill the beans with their mean-spirited balloon-puncturing observations. Example: the liberal Russian journalist, Masha Gessen forced to leave her post as editor-in-chief of Vokrug Sveta when she refused to send a reporter to cover this latest crane-Putin exploit.
"We were planning to write about the cranes, but expeditions with Putin's involvement have their own characteristic features: It's enough to remember the saving of the tigers or the search for the amphorae. It could turn out that the trees are tied to their stumps."
Labels: Adventure, Heroes and Villains, Misadventure, Russia
posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 07, 2012
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