But this image portrays anything but your typical statistical happenstance because the couple is none other than Soviet Federation Prime Minister and his wife Lyudmila, responding to the everyday mundane, banal questions that the Census Bureau wants to record for governmental study.
It strikes me as particularly odd, bizarre, brazen that the PR powers that be in the Soviet Federation are so detached from reality to think they can actually pull off something as utterly, stupendously moronic, surreal as this image of Vlad and Lyudmilla in their natural domestic environment without out the slightest sense of sheepishness about it every bit as much the equal of the best of what Pravda was churning out in the 1960s.
So you want us to believe Vladimir Putin, the megalomaniac KGB agent, bent on power, control, international prestige, dreams of returning Russia back to its former glory,having violated all sorts of governmental restrictions limiting the number of terms for high office, certainly the most powerful Russian to emerge since the Soviet collapse, having his grubby little fingers in all sorts of enterprises, legal or otherwise lives here in the drab surroundings seen here?
In Soviet Federation, you don't live in apartment, apartment lives in you.
I like the way their clothes match their furniture. Nice touch.
This would be in-character for a miser.
They are just trying to blend in. Dressed identically as the couch even. There’s so much hope in taupe. Zero must have used the same decorator.
That depends on the meaning of the word "residence". It could be one of several temporary ones he uses just to show he's a man of the people [ROTFL].
I’ve spent time in Russia. That actually looks like an opulent household!
The black blob on the right side of the pic is a dog.
“I’m Tom Bodett, at Vladimir Putin’s dacha, and we’ll leave the light on for ya.”
Leave the light on for me, Bubushka. Checkout time is 11.00 AM, Vladamir.
Next, they will show their Cosmonauts landing on the moon and planting a Russian flag in the soil.
even has the obligatory dog on the couch.
Somehow, I can’t see our First Wookie ever stoop to parking that double-wide of hers on a $400 sofa. Even for a photo-op
Fascinating photograph. There are three people in the picture and seven bottles of water. Census response is mighty thirsty work! Maybe the Putin family just has really awful taste. I know Putin is not exactly a saint, but I have never, ever read anything that indicates he is a crook. He is reputed to live a “spartan” lifestyle, and has had that reputation since he was in East Germany. Or maybe they used a corner of his office to take the photograph. The furniture and setting looks very 70s-institutional to me.
Where does he keep his miniature giraffe?
I’m guessing the writer has never been in a middle class Russian apartment.
It’s eerie that both of their clothes and their couch are the exact same shade of khaki brown. It’s like they’re wearing 70’s unitards in their space-age, modular home.
He would not be the first nor the last man focused on power who had a taste for austerity. The luxuries and pleasures they crave are more abstract. However, as another poster said, this is probably a location to which he has access, rather than his domicile.
The Couch-People of Russia.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
I had trouble finding Vlad and his lovely in the couch camo apparel. I’m guessing Vlad’s really cool digs are reserved for his young gynmast friend.
Putin’s hovel is a mansion compared to the grate Yeltsin must have slept on when he was on one of his world class benders and no one could find him.