Vladimir Putin: jacket for 1.4 million rubles does not save him from embarrassment

Putting goes wrong
Disgrace instead of triumph: a jacket for 1.45 million rubles does not save Putin from a fiasco

03/19/2022, 10:45 am

3 min reading time

It’s been a long time since Vladimir Putin showed himself to the masses. The Kremlin boss has been living in self-imposed isolation for two years and only appears in public on selected occasions. But on Friday it was time. In a packed Moscow Luzhniki Stadium, Putin took the stage and delivered what he imagined would be a triumphant speech.

But the event, which was supposed to celebrate the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, quickly degenerated into an embarrassment. In the middle of a sentence, Putin and the broadcast on state television were suddenly interrupted without giving a reason. Instead, recorded images of the “concert rally” ran, as the whole thing had been advertised in advance. Finally, without any comment, the studio switched to a propagandistic political talk show and, instead of Putin, showed rockets fired down on Ukraine “to protect the civilian population” – that’s the way it is if you follow the Kremlin’s narrative.

Suddenly Vladimir Putin was gone

For the next hour, the creators of Channel One, Russia’s largest state broadcaster, tried to show the performance of their heroic president. Without success. Meanwhile, the crowds rushed out of the stadium. No sign of Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov cited technical problems as the reason for the interruption. There was a glitch on a server. Speculations about possible sabotage quickly became loud. But regardless of whether there was a breakdown or sabotage, the event turned into a fiasco for propaganda.

The organizers of the “putting” left nothing to chance. The word is a combination of Putin and meeting and has long since become an established term for rallies that are called at Putin’s request. As in the past, it quickly became apparent that the 200,000 spectators were literally carted to the stadium. Entire workforces of factories and plants, civil servants, students from Moscow faculties – they all turned up at Luzhniki in fired, guided groups, as numerous videos and testimonies show.

The mass of spectators in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium had been carefully organized

“We were put on a bus and brought here,” says one woman succinctly when her group is asked why she was taking part in the propaganda show.

500 rubles, sausages and porridge

This practice has been known for years. Students are threatened with de-registration, civil servants and workers with dismissal in order to persuade them to take part in the “putings”. Others, however, are paid. On Friday, tenders quickly appeared on the Internet, where participants were promised 500 rubles, two free sausages and porridge. Some were quickly disappointed with their reward. It turned out that barley porridge was distributed – one of the cheapest varieties currently available in Russia. For example, on this recording, a woman can be heard reacting with disbelief that barley porridge actually exists.

Vladimir Putin and his jacket

So while the people are being fed barley porridge, Putin wore a down jacket from the Italian luxury label Loro Piana for 1.445 million rubles – according to the current ruble exchange rate, it is the equivalent of around 12,150 euros. This outfit doesn’t really fit in with the pseudo-patriotic ideology that the Kremlin preaches to its subjects.

Many in Russia are shocked by the images from the stadium. A user writes on Twitter: “I don’t want to live in this country, it just sucks. Nothing was more immoral than these tens of thousands in Luzhniki.” He doesn’t want to understand and see how these people “sell their conscience for a free blanket and a hot dog.”

Others are forced to compare themselves to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler in the face of the pictures. “Right now in Luschniki,” is the simple description of this picture.