He was born in 1952 in a city still recovering from a brutal wartime siege that had killed nearly a million people just years earlier. His own parents had lived through that siege, and he grew up hearing about two older brothers he never got to meet.
His family shared a small communal apartment with two other households, all splitting one kitchen and one bathroom. There was no hot water and no elevator, and rats were common in the stairwell — a childhood far removed from the world stage he would one day command.
As a boy, he was smaller than most of his classmates and often got into scraps in his courtyard. He eventually channeled that energy into sambo and later judo, disciplines built on control and technique rather than brute strength.
He went on to study law at his city’s state university, graduating in the mid-1970s. From there, he built a career in government service that would quietly shape the next several decades of his life.
Decades later, that boy from a crowded communal apartment would go on to lead one of the largest and most powerful nations on Earth, holding onto power longer than almost any other modern leader. From a childhood of hardship and street fights to global summits and headlines around the world, his path is one of the most dramatic transformations in recent history.
Have you guessed who it is? The answer: Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
