putin's potty-mouth

[j_b]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/08/wruss08.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/11/08/ixportal.html

 

Putin's language is becoming the talk of the vulgar

By Julius Strauss in Moscow

(Filed: 08/11/2003)

 

 

President Vladimir Putin has a reputation for foul-mouthed asides, but Italian journalists sitting in straight-backed chairs in a Kremlin reception room cannot have expected what was coming.

 

Opposite them, Vladimir Putin, immaculately dressed and statesmanlike, answered a question about one of the country's notorious billionaires. The interpreter's voice petered away into embarrassed silence. "You must always obey the law, not just when they've got you by the balls" is a rough equivalent of what Mr Putin had said.

 

For a western politician such a salty choice of words, shown on national television, might mean political embarrassment, even censure.

 

But President Putin, once seen as a faceless KGB officer with a wooden delivery, now regularly sprinkles his public statements with the argot of the street. Moscow liberals are appalled and say he is betraying his lack of pedigree for the highest office in the land.

 

But many ordinary Russians adore Putin's earthy indiscretions for the grit and defiance of convention that they convey.

 

For many, they carry echoes of Nikita Khrushchev, the most boorish of Soviet leaders who took off his shoe at the United Nations and banged it on the lectern.

 

Prof Robert Russell, the head of the Russian department at Sheffield University, said: "Like Khrushchev, Putin has an earthy turn of phrase. It means people see him as one of their own. He's always controlled and usually rather unemotional but there's something else Russians respond to, something more visceral. I think he does these things deliberately for that reason."

 

Mr Putin had only just come to power when he uttered his first corker, saying he would deal with Chechens by "wiping them out in the shit house".

 

Last year when a French journalist asked a hostile question at a European Union summit in Brussels, the Russian president said: "Come to Moscow. We can offer you a circumcision. I will recommend a doctor to carry out the operation in such a way nothing else will ever grow there again."

 

When the translation was released, European Union officials expressed their fury. In Russia it ruffled few feathers.

 

In recent history, the Kremlin has not been blessed with great orators. Joseph Stalin, who had a gruff Georgian accent, was repetitive and uninspiring. Leonid Brezhnev was interminably hard on the ear, especially after his first stroke. Mikhail Gorbachev spoke bureaucratic, convoluted Russian. Boris Yeltsin's tone was annoyingly familiar and his words often slurred.

 

Mr Putin, by contrast, has shone.

 

"He is the first president we can call a professional public speaker," said Alexander Volkov, a linguistics lecturer at Moscow State University.

 

When the cameras stop rolling, Mr Putin is even reported to resort to mat, the bawdy and highly taboo domain of Russian invective that forms the mainstay of prison, military and teenage street slang.

 

According to the Russian writer Victor Erofeyev, Mr Putin told the veteran Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov: "We don't fucking need a military base in Cuba!"

 

Perhaps Mr Putin's vocabulary owes something to the example set by his hero, Peter the Great. Mr Erofeyev says that while decapitating rebellious Kremlin guards, Tsar Peter let out an immense stream of foul language, "a legendary tapestry of 74 words woven together by the force of his wrath".

 

Nevertheless the diminutive judo black-belt continues to quarry the mines of the vernacular with confidence.

 

At a recent meeting of leaders of the former Soviet states, he urged them to work harder and to stop "just chewing snot from one year to the next".

[scott_harpell]

putin's da man! he is taking care of the big business boyz in a way we only wish GWB would.

[scott_harpell]

Boris Yeltsin's tone was annoyingly familiar and his words often slurred.

 

gee... wonder why?

[ridehikeclimbski]

Putin needs to send GWB a telegraph, advising him to quit acting like a Dumb Fucking Jackass Dickhead World Dictator !

 

Sumbitchbush thinks he can transform the world into a complete democracy environment , that idiot needs some real education on world affairs and foreign policy !

 

Kudos for Putins country arresting Russias largest corrupted oil barron , hopefully Putin can come to the USA and arrest some of our thieves that are CEOs !

[Dru]

Putin should log himself on an avatar and start spraying, dude sounds like Polish Bob

[cracked]

Dru said:

Putin should log himself on an avatar and start spraying, dude sounds like Polish Bob

[catbirdseat]

Hell, I'd bet he could even teach Bob a phrase or two. Don't be too surprised if Putin actually shows up on this here lil' ol' board.

[Fairweather]

ridehikeclimbski said:

Putin needs to send GWB a telegraph, advising him to quit acting like a Dumb Fucking Jackass Dickhead World Dictator !

 

Sumbitchbush thinks he can transform the world into a complete democracy environment , that idiot needs some real education on world affairs and foreign policy !

 

Kudos for Putins country arresting Russias largest corrupted oil barron , hopefully Putin can come to the USA and arrest some of our thieves that are CEOs !

 

This statement belies your complete and utter lack of understanding re the complexity of this issue. Putin had the guy arrested not because he was a corrupt oil baron, but because he was becoming a political threat. His action will likely now throw the struggling RF economy into even deeper chaos. Putin, who I have admired until recently (and for the most part still do), is taking Russia down a dangerous road. Dangerous for us too.

[scott_harpell]

Fairweather said:

ridehikeclimbski said:

Putin needs to send GWB a telegraph, advising him to quit acting like a Dumb Fucking Jackass Dickhead World Dictator !

 

Sumbitchbush thinks he can transform the world into a complete democracy environment , that idiot needs some real education on world affairs and foreign policy !

 

Kudos for Putins country arresting Russias largest corrupted oil barron , hopefully Putin can come to the USA and arrest some of our thieves that are CEOs !

 

This statement belies your complete and utter lack of understanding re the complexity of this issue. Putin had the guy arrested not because he was a corrupt oil baron, but because he was becoming a political threat. His action will likely now throw the struggling RF economy into even deeper chaos. Putin, who I have admired until recently (and for the most part still do), is taking Russia down a dangerous road. Dangerous for us too.

 

if by political threat you mean that he wanted to make things 'soviet' for the oligarchs again, then yeah. he was trying to step on putin and test the waters for what he could get away with and putin shut his ass down. too bad our president is too big of a pussy to do the same. when i think of Enron, i think WWPD?