Post by Admin on May 22, 2017 18:21:39 GMT
Lyudmila Putin was the wife of Vladimir Putin for three decades. They met in Leningrad, married in 1983 and moved to East Germany, where her husband was a KGB spy. When the Iron Curtain crumbled, they returned to Russia, where Vladimir Putin began his remarkable journey to becoming the most powerful person in the country, if not on the planet.
But as Vladimir reigned in Moscow, Lyudmila was seen less and less in public. Wild rumors in the Russian press suggested that he had packed her off to a monastery. In June 2013, the couple attended a Kremlin production of the ballet “La Esmeralda.” In the intermission, they announced to reporters that they would be divorcing.
Since then, Russians have heard little about Lyudmila. Putin’s press secretary refused to answer questions about her life, while the Kremlin biography of Russia’s president deleted all mention of her. But many ordinary citizens remained fascinated by her, eager to know what happened to the woman who may have gotten closer to Putin than anyone else.
Lyudmila is not officially wealthy, either. Until her divorce, she was required by law to declare her assets and income, and she never declared much. In fact, Vladimir Putin’s own wealth declarations are similarly sparse, with a $147,000 salary and limited assets, including a Moscow apartment, a plot of land and three cars, listed on his 2015 statement.
These new details offer not only a glimpse into the notoriously private world of Putin’s family, barely acknowledged in official accounts and the subject of tabloid gossip, but also a hint of the wealth that critics say the Russian president and those in his inner circle have acquired over recent years.
The Russian news website Sobesednik revealed Lyudmila’s new relationship last year, when it reported on documents that appeared to show that the 58-year-old divorcée had remarried and changed her last name to that of her new husband, businessman Artur Ocheretny, then 37. Photographs appearing to show the couple at London’s Heathrow Airport were published this weekend by the website Starhit.