Vladimir Putin wears a tank top, tracksuit, and long messy hair while playing table tennis and darts. Finnish TV station YLE broadcasts unpublished photos of the Russian president. The video clips show Putin, to say the least, that he is unprecedented, and very far from the personality that has dominated the scene in Russia for a quarter of a century. The video dates back to the early 1990s and was filmed in Finland during a Labor Day celebration.
Tracksuit and long hair, young Vladimir
At that time, The current Russian president was in his 40s and about to burst onto the St. Petersburg political sceneFrom where he will set off to invade Moscow. “It’s Putin before wealth. Putin wears bad clothes, has a bad haircut, Putin does normal things like a normal father,” says Luke Harding, a former Guardian correspondent from Moscow in an interview with Finnish television. The video is brand new and refers to a hitherto unknown trip to Finland. The photographs document ordinary “leisure” activities, including gardens, ping-pong tables, and lunches. We even see the Tsar’s “uncontrollable” laughter.
Putin laughs: “He looks human.”
The Russian president’s self-control, at that time, was not strong: “The most surprising thing is that” in the video “he is laughing. He looks human.” In ping-pong games, in which Putin often touches the back of his neck with his left hand, the current Russian president plays in pairs with Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg who died in 2000.
The two opponents, according to the reconstruction, are bodyguards, very skilled at losing and letting the chiefs celebrate. The clip was filmed at a residence made available at the time by the Tomesto group, which had ties to Russia, on the island of Torso, about 100 kilometers southwest of Helsinki.
The broadcaster will not reveal the source of the video: Putin, who has built a “man of steel” image over the years, may not like (to put it mildly) the spread of a video showing a previously unknown side.
The TV has edited the images to improve their quality and possesses the original VHS tapes, with elements that allow it to identify the exact location where the images were taken. For your information, the residence no longer belongs to Thomesto and is now the private home of a Finnish citizen.
According to anonymous sources contacted by TV, a lot of time during his stay in Finland was devoted to boat fishing trips, and sometimes resort to networking to ensure satisfying loot. It cannot be ruled out that the video was part of an operation carried out at the time by Helsinki intelligence, and its results were surprising: Putin, the Soviet intelligence man, was always careful not to show his face, like any self-respecting spy. The clip is an exception, and the cheerful version of the current Russian president seems rare. At the table, among the meat dishes and rich drinks, there is also room for “irreverent” jokes: in Finland you eat without limits, while in St. Petersburg you have to deal with rationed supplies.
“Freelance social media evangelist. Organizer. Certified student. Music maven.”
