When the camera finds him, Vladimir Putin is still sitting at his desk, as if he doesn’t actually have time for his own inauguration. His assembled court is already waiting for him in the magnificent St. Andrew’s Hall; the real tsars were crowned there before Putin. Putin’s predecessor Boris Yeltsin took his oath of office in a much simpler event building on the Kremlin grounds. The huge golden double doors and the chandeliers under the vaulted ceiling of the Andreas Hall were the backdrop for Putin’s rule from the start.
Putin’s inauguration: In a pose of power in front of a magnificent backdrop – politics
