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Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
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First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President Paperback – May 5, 2000

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Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly--overnight and without warning--was handed the reigns of power to one of the most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How can we trust him if we don't know him?

First Person is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who holds the future of Russia in his grip. An extraordinary compilation of over 24 hours of in-depth interviews and remarkable photographs, it delves deep into Putin's KGB past and explores his meteoric rise to power. No Russian leader has ever subjected himself to this kind of public examination of his life and views. Both as a spy and as a virtual political unknown until selected by Boris Yeltsin to be Prime Minister, Putin has been regarded as man of mystery. Now, the curtain lifts to reveal a remarkable life of struggles and successes. Putin's life story is of major importance to the world.
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  1. Print length
    208 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    PublicAffairs
  4. Publication date
    May 5, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.6 x 7.63 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1586480189
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1586480189
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The product of six interviews conducted by Russian journalists (and translated into English by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick), First Person is a book-length Q&A session in which Russian president Vladimir Putin discusses his childhood, his life as a spy, and his surprisingly rapid rise as a politician in the 1990s. Parts of this unusual autobiography are plainly banal (he weighs 165 pounds and likes beer), but interspersed throughout are candid comments by one of the world's most powerful men. Putin admits that he didn't know much about Stalin's violent purges in the 1930s when he joined the KGB ("I was a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education"). He also scolds Soviet leaders for the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the cold war: "These were major mistakes. And the Russophobia that we see in Eastern Europe today is the fruit of those mistakes." At another point, he expresses frustration with some of the things critics have said about him: "Why have they made up so much about me? It's complete nonsense!" On the war in Chechnya, he is predictably defensive: "I was convinced that if we didn't stop the extremists right away, we'd be facing a second Yugoslavia on the entire territory of the Russian Federation--the Yugoslavization of Russia.... We are not attacking. We are defending ourselves." There's also an interview with his wife, who, when asked if her husband ever gets drunk, responds: "There hasn't been any of that." (After Yeltsin, this is apparently of concern to Russians.) The interviewers also ask her whether he ever looks at other women. She replies with a question of her own, intriguingly: "Well, what sort of man would he be, if he weren't attracted by beautiful women?" But Putin is, appropriately, the main show. Readers interested in Russian politics will want to review the final pages closely, as the president discourses on contemporary topics. Confronted with tough questions about Russia's treatment of a journalist who filed negative stories about Chechnya, Putin says, "We interpret freedom of expression in different ways." That's a KGB man talking--and yet another reason Putin is worth watching. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Prior to his sudden rise to the Russian presidency, Putin was virtually a mystery; this transcript of recent interviews goes a long way toward filling the blanks in his past. In eight chapters of q&a, punctuated with anecdotes from friends and family members, Putin recounts his boyhood in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), the three years he spent as a KGB intelligence officer in Dresden, his return to the collapsed USSR and decision to enter politics and, finally, the day Boris Yeltsin asked him to take up the Kremlin reins. In Russia, this slim volume surfaced quickly during the brief interim between Yeltsin's resignation and the March elections. But rather than focusing on his political views and ideology, the interviewers devote the bulk of the text to Putin's biography--an indication of just how unknown the new Russian president is to his constituency. And the book succeeds in humanizing the uncharismatic politician. Through his childhood memories, readers learn that the gaunt, stoic man in the newsreels was once a spunky teen cruising the streets of Leningrad in search of girls and judo matches and dreaming of being a Soviet secret agent. Putin, it would seem, was just the socialist boy-next-door, or, in his own unironic words: "a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education." The question he leaves unanswered is: how does such an ordinary and unassuming guy find himself the president of Russia in an era of unabashed political intrigue? (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs; 1st edition (May 5, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1586480189
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1586480189
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.6 x 7.63 inches
  • Customer Reviews:

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Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

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4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
492 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jean Sasson
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely interesting book that should be required reading in schools all over the world
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2021
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Few of us are privy to what happens behind the walls of most governments, whether in the East or the West. But this book is not about government so much as it is the private life of President Putin. I was truly amazed by the candor of the President in the telling of his story. Yes, he is calm and thoughtful but seemingly very honest about his life as a child, the lives of his amazing parents, and the good and the bad about growing up in Russia, something few of us would expect from any world leader. I admit I was very impressed by his parents -- both survivors of WWII. His parents lived in Leningrad, and we all know what that meant -- the German siege of the city brought on the most horrific suffering in the war -- very few survived. President Putin's mother refused to leave her beloved city and came very close to starving to death. His father was a war hero -- taking on extremely dangerous missions. One might think that after his parents so suffered in WWII that he would not wage a war that is tragic for so many innocents, but instead do everything in his power to avoid war. This is a disappointment to say the least. But to go back to the book: Putin's childhood was stark as the family was very poor, but he was a greatly loved child (his parents had already lost one son) and very bright although a bit careless in studies -- later he overcame that characteristic. In today's world we should all know more about those who lead powerful countries. You truly feel that you are in the story, experiencing the good and the bad. Those who know the history of Russian people probably feel as I do -- I feel that the Russian people have suffered immensely, first under the Czars, and then under Communism. Yet from what I know about the people, most are quite nice but must act in a very careful manner or risk persecution to include imprisonment or possibly death. Most Russians have a great love for their country, and a great love for their families. I simply cannot compliment the leaders of the Communist Party, other than Gorbachev, who had common sense and appeared to be sensitive to the needs of the Russian people. Sadly, he is very old now and unable to lend his voice to the current tragic situation.
29 people found this helpful
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B. Crosby
4.0 out of 5 stars Putin stronger than bear AND Chuck Norris!
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2013
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This is an interesting biography format. It's composed almost entirely of interviews with Putin and those who knew and know him. While it's obvious that these people will portray Putin in the best light possible (for fear of being imprisoned), I think it becomes clear that Putin grew up in a totally different time than the old Soviet Stalinist, totalitarian regime we imagine. When he's assigned to East Germany in 1985, he's even shocked at how ideologically backwards they are full of fear and stagnation, a state Russia left three decades ago. (They were however economically better off.) It is evident that the Soviets became relatively more progressive, and he continually contrasts his ideology with KGB old-timers, although you may question the sincerity. But to think that Putin was stationed in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came down puts things into perspective. He is part of a new generation of Russians. Also, being a KGB agent is not necessarily a bad thing, because of all the people in the Soviet Union, it was the KGB agents who had greatest access to the West, and they often discovered completely different perspectives and cultures than their own. I doubt many were shocked and cried, "I knew it all along, these decadent Westerners are impoverished and immoral!" More likely, they wondered why the West so was so wealthy and their citizens were allowed to think and express themselves more freely.

The West (media, corporations, politicians, banks) have excoriated Putin as some old-fashioned, dangerous, dinosaur Soviet KGB agent who wants to bring Russia back to the good-old Soviet days full of purges and war with the West. The real reason they do this is that Putin has made Russia an independent power that will not submit to Western corporate, banking, and political power. The West had no problem with Yeltsin, even when he attacked his own Parliament with tanks (ironically, Yeltsin rose to power as a Parliamentarian under siege by tanks). Yeltsin destroyed Russia and created a dangerous organized criminal oligarchy, but the West loved him, because he sold cheap Capital to them and made Russia impotent. Of course, he has imprisoned political opponents and journalists, but at the same time, the West has supported his opponents, and if they had their way, there would be another pro-West Yeltsin in office selling cheap oil and impoverishing Russia.

We all grow up adoring democracy and villainizing autocracy, but history teaches us time and again that sometimes undemocratic autocracy does work, sometimes exceptionally well. Take into consideration South Korea's autocracy that allowed them to consolidate industry and become an economic world power. Take into consideration China today. And it was centralized autocratic government that allowed Germany to rise out of the rubble of the Great Depression and become one of the greatest economies in the world (until 1939 when Hitler went to war). Again centralized autocratic government allowed Stalin to make the USSR a superpower. So what are the drawbacks to autocracy? Obviously, under the command of a sociopath, you can get some pretty nasty genocide and purges. While it works well for large-scale industry, it fails to stimulate technological progress and innovation. Centralized autocracy works well to reward uncreative, dullard bureaucrats, but it punishes and often imprisons the rebellious, creative genius. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would never have flourished in the Soviet Union.

Of course, Putin is halfway between the autocrat and democrat, but Russia should free itself completely from the shackles of organized crime and the oligarchs, before it's safe to unleash full democracy and allow all the rebellious and creative people to advance technology. For the time being, Russia is only a big oil giant.

The two big themes of Putin's character is that 1. he is fearless and 2. he never forgets a betrayal. If the West screws him, it will be the end of good relations with Russia, and if the West threatens him with force, he'll only laugh at us. What judo has taught him is to respect your opponent, and we should continue sparring with him, but ultimately treat him and Russia with respect and dignity.

Putin was only a lieutenant-colonel in the KGB before quitting. The West makes it look like he went from Director of the KGB to the President of Russia. After he left the KGB he even did a TV show and told everyone he had been in the KGB. Although, he later became the first "deputy to the chief of the presidential administration" at the FSB (the successor of the KGB) it only lasted a year.

He's a humanist enough to say, "...I realized that our identity is in our friends...If you look at a career as a means to achieve power, control people, or make money, and if you are prepared to lose everything doing that--well, that's another matter. But if you have priorities in life--benchmarks and values--then you realize that there's no point in sacrificing yourself and those who are a part of your life. There just isn't any point. You lose more than you gain."

Of course, let's not get sentimental, Putin is an autocrat who has imprisoned innocent opponents, but we can be thankful that until Hitler he has no ambitions for Russia to take over the world or seize its former possession under the USSR.

There's some interesting stuff in here like: "Many have forgotten, by the way, that when NATO was created at the end of the 1940s, the Soviet Union indicated its intention to enter this bloc... The Pact was a direct response to the formation of the NATO alliance."

Ultimately, the fatal flaw of this book is that it was published in 2000 and only includes a couple years of him being Prime Minister. The whole reason I bought the book was to understand how he was about to fight the oligarchs and organized crime and return Russia to economic growth. During his Presidency (2000 - 2008) the Russian economy increased sixfold. I supposed nationalized oil had a lot to do with this, but I would have liked some details.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Cat Lover
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Biographies are Autobiographies.
Reviewed in Canada on September 17, 2023
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I chose this book because it's written about Putin by Putin. It isn't just someone else's opinion of Putin.
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Memore Ignis
5.0 out of 5 stars Great interview
Reviewed in France on April 19, 2024
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Great interview of Putin and also all close friends and family! Very interesting
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Anil J.
5.0 out of 5 stars Hope of the World, Russia with Vladimir Putin!
Reviewed in India on September 4, 2023
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Insights into the story of the success of Putin and his beloved motherland against impossible odds that serves as a harbinger of hope for humanity in these troubled times of battling against world injustice, brutality and the genocidal activities of the Collective West.
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Jesús
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read to understand him
Reviewed in Spain on March 14, 2022
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Really interesting, I think everybody should read it, speccially the part about when he was in the KGB and how he saw the Soviet collapse, it helps to understand him and his current events.
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Master
3.0 out of 5 stars 彼の本質理解に役だつ
Reviewed in Japan on August 5, 2023
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英語本で文字量が多いので通読は大変ですが、読みごたえが有ります。
ウクライナ問題を理解する為にも大勢の日本人に読んで欲しいです。
ロシアだけを一方的に悪者扱いする米国民主党に操られる岸田政権も問題です。
インドを見習って欲しい。
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