In the former Soviet Union state leaders remained silent about his personal life. Putin followed this tradition, because he is a typical citizen of the Soviet Union and, among other things, the KGB officer, a profession which was to preserve secrecy.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union exception was Boris Yeltsin, who has openly talked about his daughter Tatyana Yumasheva and his wife Naina Yeltsin. Mikhail Gorbachev often showed his family the press and told how he loves his wife. But Raisa never was the first lady of the nation.
“President Putin − as if distant from the people the father of the nation. This is a typically Russian authoritarian tradition. The future depends on the direction in which to develop a society. Now the trend is becoming more authoritarian, and authoritarian ruler can dictate your public image,” says PhD researcher and docent Jussi Lassila (Lassila Jussi) from the Alexander Institute.
Lassila recalls that there are authoritarian systems in which the ruling family or the yard show off. These are some of the reigning houses of the Middle East or, for example, Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko is going to transfer power to his son.
“Russia in this sense is a strange transitional form. In the form of government is a parliamentary democracy headed by a President, but in practice authoritarian society, in which there are monarchical traits. There is a closed circle that protect. In a closed circle includes the family.”
New generation
“Russian way of thinking is that traditionally the Governor is somewhere upstairs. So still think in the province or among people with low education, but not educated inhabitants of large cities,” says Jussi Lassila.
For Putin there will come a new generation.
“In fact, from the notable and quite young politicians, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is the last one who grew up in the Soviet Union. He was born in 1965. A representative of the opposition Alexei Navalny is representative of a completely different policy. He acts in ways that he borrowed from US and used, for example, in the election campaign of the mayor of Moscow. He introduced his wife and children and tried to create an image of the average Russian citizen. Many of the younger generation’s attitude to publicity is different from Putin.”
Perhaps the photo of the head of state with children on the covers of Russian women’s magazines — only a matter of time.
