Paul Goble
Staunton, October 7 – Today is Vladimir Putin’s 68th birthday. On that occasion, below are offered a baker’s dozen of anecdotes about the Kremlin leader (maximonline.ru/humor/made-in-web/_article/luchshie-anekdoty-pro-vladimira-putina/).
1. Putin passes a homeless man on the street and wants to do something to help him. So the leader decides to give the man an exemption from paying taxes.
2. A Russian is asked to name four leaders with moustaches. He responds: “Stalin, Hitler, Lukashenka and Putin.” But his questioner reasonably observes that Putin doesn’t have any. “Oh, yes, he does,” he’s told. “It’s simply that Putin as a real intelligence officer keeps them on Peskov’s face.”
3. Putin’s rating once rose so high that the security agencies knew all those who opposed him by name.
4. Putin and Merkel have a telephone call to talk about how to cope with the pandemic. The German chancellor tells about the aid package she has put together for her people. The Kremlin leader responds by talking about the fines he’s instituted for those who violate self-isolation.
5. Putin’s main problems with cadres are that he appoints people who are reliable but acts as if they are smart.
6. Putin’s not wanting to retire is one thing; not allowing anyone else to be able to afford to is another.
7. Responding to American complaints about Russian interference in US elections, Putin says that he doesn’t allow himself to do so even in Russia’s.
8. A single mother calls Putin and says she has two small sons.” What can I expect from the government?” she asks. “At a minimum, two draft notices,” Putin replies.
9. Under Stalin, they killed people; under Khrushchev, they unmasked them; under Brezhnev, they rotted; and under Yeltsin, they stole. Putin is an innovator: he does all four things at once.
10. Putin’s collected works will be known as “the Complete Collection of Promises.”
11. “My son wears a t-shirt declaring that ‘I’m for Putin’ for two weeks. During that time, he’s been spat upon and had bottles thrown at him. What will happen to him if he leaves the house?”
12. Might it not be better, Vladimir Vladimirovich, to raise taxes on the oligarchs than to steal from older Russians? Putin responds: “I already spoke with the oligarchs about that. They are opposed to doing that.”
13. People say that “without Putin, things for us will get worse. Well, everything is getting worse and worse and worse. Perhaps, we have already been living a long time without Putin?”
No comments:
Post a Comment