Shocking Facts About The Young Putin Have Come To Light

The dictator's teacher's recollections reveal his character.

Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952. As a child, he lived in his neighborhood “by the law of the jungle,” hung out with a gang of street urchins, maimed a classmate, cut off the heads of pet ducks, and, feeling offended one day, he simply threw his favorite teacher’s candy out the window, according to “Focus”.

Interest in Vladimir Putin is growing—as the man who unleashed a full-scale war against Ukraine for no apparent reason. It’s understandable: if there were no external causes, then surely there were internal ones? What, then, are these psychological motives? As the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, taught—look for the roots of problems in childhood.

Putin at school: memories of his teacher Vera Gurevich

Putin’s School Years. He Injured a Classmate

Vera Dmitrievna took the class to the movies.

“After two or three minutes, we looked back, and they were all huddled together, standing there. I saw Putin standing a little to the side, while the rest of the kids formed a circle around K., who was lying on the ground and couldn’t get up. I asked the boy on the ground what was wrong; he explained that he’d tripped, fallen awkwardly, and seemed to have broken or dislocated his leg, while the other kids stood there in silence, staring wide-eyed. One of the guys called an “ambulance”; I tried to figure out how it all happened, but they either mumbled something unintelligible or denied knowing anything, saying they hadn’t noticed how it all happened. Volodya didn’t fit in with this group, and I suspected there was more to this story than what they were trying to explain to me…

It turned out K. had a fracture in the ankle area… The next day, after sending everyone else in the class home after school, I kept Putin behind. Without asking any questions, I said, “Why did you break K.’s leg?” “I just picked him up and threw him; I didn’t know he was such a wimp.” I tried to find out the reason for “throwing” him, to which Volodya, puffing himself up, replied, “Let him explain that to you himself.”

I told Volodya that he shouldn’t have used force against K., but should have talked to him more persuasively. To this, my student replied: “Vera Dmitrievna, there are people who don’t understand words at all or don’t want to understand them. They only understand force.” That stuck with me for many years. Volodya was only 14 years old at the time.”

Putin shows his character. Candy and flowers for his favorite teacher—thrown out the window

“My class’s duty shift at school coincided with my birthday,” writes Vera Gurevich. “But the kids didn’t show up for duty! I didn’t just walk in—I burst into the classroom. The whole class stood up and smiled. Then Sasha Andreev walked up to the teacher’s desk and wished me a happy birthday on behalf of all the students. He placed a huge box of candy and a bouquet of roses on the desk…

“Thank you for the birthday wishes. Why didn’t you show up for duty? Did you let me down?”

The class fell silent. The silence was broken by none other than Putin, who calmly said to Andreev: “Pass me the box and the flowers. She doesn’t need our congratulations, and she doesn’t need candy or flowers from us. And we don’t need them either.” He opened the window and threw the candy and flowers out onto the street.”

A bunch of punks. What Was Putin’s Childhood Like

Once, Putin’s teacher “decided to check out” who he was hanging out with and what he was up to in the schoolyard. It was just your typical neighborhood gang: they smoked, spat, swore, and drank beer from glass bottles, since back then beer was mostly sold on tap from barrels at small kiosks. And indeed, the teenagers were older than Volodya. The age difference was 2–3 years… If anyone tried to use force against him, regardless of his age, he’d jump right into the fight and sink his teeth into his attacker, clinging to him like a bulldog with a death grip… When asked why he spent time with the neighborhood punks, he usually replied, “Just because—it’s kind of fun.”

From a conversation with him, I learned that when he came home after school, he was alone until five o’clock, since his mother worked as a cleaning lady somewhere in a lab or hospital,” writes Gurevich.

Putin’s father was a laborer; his mother was a cleaning lady. Neither of them paid much attention to their son, who spent all his free time in the courtyard.

There is plenty of information online about this period of Putin’s childhood that confirms the teacher’s words.

“I remember him well in the courtyard. In elementary school, the courtyard was Putin’s window to the world… The atmosphere there was terrible: unshaven, dirty guys with port wine and cigarettes. Drinking binges, swearing, fights. And Putin was right there among all that riffraff” (Viktor Borisenko, Putin’s school friend and a St. Petersburg film director, from an interview with journalist and the Russian president’s first biographer Oleg Blotsky for the book *Vladimir Putin: A Life Story,” 2002).

Putin himself confirms Borisenko’s words:

“Living in a courtyard and growing up there is just like living in the jungle. Very similar. Very! Street life is very free in and of itself. Just like in the movie *Generals of the Sand Quarries*. We had the same thing. The only difference was probably the weather. In *The Generals*, it was warmer, and the kids would gather on the beach. But otherwise, their situation and ours were absolutely the same” (Oleg Blotsky. “Vladimir Putin: A Life Story.” 2002).

“The courtyard operated by the law of the jungle. The older guys ruled over the younger ones. We lived like we were in prison: there were bosses and their servants. Discipline was strictest. If an older kid told a younger one, ‘Go get such-and-such,’ you had to go and fetch it without question. Putin hung out with the younger kids” (from an interview with one of the Putin family’s neighbors at Building No. 12 on Baskov Lane, published in the newspaper *Moskovsky Komsomolets* on October 6, 2010).

Putin was cruel by nature, as evidenced by the incident involving the maimed boy, but his character was further “hardened” among the street thugs.

Putin’s “forced” cruelty. Chopping off the heads of pet ducks—and then going for a swim

“The summer of 1969 was especially memorable for us,” recalls Vera Dmitrievna Gurevich. — Although by that time my kids were no longer directly under my care… we felt a strong desire not to break with our tradition and, after they finished 9th grade, to go on a recreational camping trip together again. This time we went to Latvia…. In Latvia, the kids fed two ducks in the lake on whose shore we were staying. Before leaving, the idea came up to eat them. But to do that, we had to cut off the heads of the unsuspecting ducks, who had already come to trust us. Those with weak nerves moved as far away from the execution site as possible…

The role of “executioner” fell to Borisenko, but he flatly refused: “Do whatever you want with me, but I won’t chop off a head—I don’t know how, and I don’t want to.” — “Then we’ll eat you instead of the duck.”

What ensued was chaos: they lunged at each other, rolled around on the grass—it was impossible to tell who was attacking and who was defending.

This briefly postponed the bird’s “execution,” but it didn’t save her. Volodya came to his friend’s aid. He threw a blanket over himself, completely covering his head. He said, “Bring the poor thing in, position her neck so that I, without seeing her, can cut off her head with a single blow.”

After the “execution,” someone started plucking the feathers—this has to be done before the carcass cools down— someone was getting ready to gut the duck, and someone else, after such a grueling task as the “execution,” rushed off to swim in the lake,” Gurevich recalled.

Yes, not everyone has the nerves to feed ducks for a long time and then, once they’ve come to trust you, chop off their heads.

Both a competent psychologist and an ordinary reader can draw conclusions from the book, but the overall message is clear: while Putin had no external reasons for the war with Ukraine, he had more than enough internal motives based on cruelty and aggression.

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