Vladimir Putin's Secret Family Life
The Russian First Family
As most Russians know about their new, yet old, President Putin and his family, most know little about them. Ask any reporters who try to get Vladimir Putin to respond to a question about his personal life or family, they will tell you you will not get an answer. The Russian first family is largely unknown to most Russians. This is quite the opposite of the US President's family. When one Russian reporter asked Putin for info about his family in a public interview, you could clearly see controlled anger. In fact, the reporter lost his job over it.
The Putina family consisted of himself (b. 1952), his soon to be ex-wife, Lyudmila (b. 1957), Mariya (b. 1985) and Yekatrina (b. 1986). Putin has confessed that his life would be entirely different had it not been for sports. As a poor boy, he admitted to being in a lot of fights and scraps with the law in and around Leningrad. One could accurately state as a pre-teen, he was a punk. It was in high school he discovered sports, which kept him off the streets. Putin's wife (married in 1983) was a former airline stewardess for Aeroflot, a Soviet airline. They dated for three years and according to his biography, it was not love at first sight. Well, that certainly explains why the couple is seldom seen in public in recent years and why his wife lives far away from Moscow in Pskov. Putin has been seen around Moscow with another woman, which is about the same age his daughters. Her name is Alina Kabaeva.
The oldest daughter, Mariya (Maria), 27, recently got married and honeymooned off Greek islands. The younger one, Yekatrina, 26, remains single and seems to prefer the Korean culture as she spends a lot of time there. She dated a Korean man for several years. Yoon Joon-won was in Russia for eight years before moving to the US where he graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an international politics major. After graduation he worked for Samsung Electronics in Moscow. They met in 1999. It is interesting to note that she also a German citizen since she was born in Dresden. She has a degree in Japanese History, while Mariya, has one in economics.Dresden is where President Putin worked as a KGB agent in the 1980s. President Putin is fluent in German.
Until 2000, the Putin family was like most-more close knit as a unit. But, like most families, when the kids go off to college, the empty nest syndrome appears. Putin's quest to be Russia's Czar-like leader for a third term indicates where his priorities are.