MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin was seen with his wife, Lyudmila, Thursday night for the first time in a year, at a production of the ballet La Esmeralda, and took advantage of the occasion to tell his nation that they are getting divorced.
During the first intermission, at the Kremlin State Palace, the couple was interviewed by the Russia24 news channel. They exchanged a few pleasantries about the ballet, and then the reporter mentioned that they are rarely seen together.
“There are so many rumors that you’re divorced,” the reporter said. “Is this correct?”
“This is correct,” Putin said. Looking at Lyudmila, wearing a black outfit with white accents, he said, “All my work is related to publicity. But there are people who are absolutely incompatible with this, for instance Lyudmila Alexandrovna” – using a formal style of address that includes her patronymic. It’s a way of talking that long-married couples occasionally resort to — sometimes with fondness. It would be like President Obama referring to Michelle as “Mrs. Obama.”
“We hardly see each other and we each have our own lives,” she said. “I don’t like publicity, and flying wears me down. We will remain very close people forever, and I am grateful to Vladimir Vladimirovich’’ – again, the polite form of address – “that he still supports me.”
They both said that the divorce was a joint decision. They didn’t say when it happened. They called their divorce civilized, but didn’t say if it had been legally formalized yet.
The last time they were seen in public together was in May of 2012, at his inauguration, when he was shown accepting her congratulations as if they had been apart for a long time. Lyudmila Putina has been reported to live in Sardinia, among other places, and to be spending time in Paris.
“She was a woman who loved, and was not loved,” Nataliya Gevorkyan, who wrote a biography of Putin in 2000, said in a recent interview in Paris.
She was an Aeroflot flight attendant from Kaliningrad when they met. He was a young KGB agent. He had already left one fiancée at the altar — also named Lyudmila.
She followed him to Dresden, then in East Germany, back to St. Petersburg, then on to Moscow when he took a job in the Kremlin. Along the way they had two daughters, both now grown.
As president, Putin has made a fetish of appearing to work inhuman hours, often interspersed with bouts of intense physical activity.
The Putins had entered the theater to brief and uncomfortable applause, with some in the audience standing awkwardly as if startled by their appearance. Their being together rated a news item by the RIA Novosti news agency. After the interview, conducted while they stood side by side in a room off the auditorium, the Putins left the theater. They missed the last two acts of a melodramatic ballet based on the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Victor Hugo novel.
During the first intermission, at the Kremlin State Palace, the couple was interviewed by the Russia24 news channel. They exchanged a few pleasantries about the ballet, and then the reporter mentioned that they are rarely seen together.
“There are so many rumors that you’re divorced,” the reporter said. “Is this correct?”
“This is correct,” Putin said. Looking at Lyudmila, wearing a black outfit with white accents, he said, “All my work is related to publicity. But there are people who are absolutely incompatible with this, for instance Lyudmila Alexandrovna” – using a formal style of address that includes her patronymic. It’s a way of talking that long-married couples occasionally resort to — sometimes with fondness. It would be like President Obama referring to Michelle as “Mrs. Obama.”
“We hardly see each other and we each have our own lives,” she said. “I don’t like publicity, and flying wears me down. We will remain very close people forever, and I am grateful to Vladimir Vladimirovich’’ – again, the polite form of address – “that he still supports me.”
They both said that the divorce was a joint decision. They didn’t say when it happened. They called their divorce civilized, but didn’t say if it had been legally formalized yet.
The last time they were seen in public together was in May of 2012, at his inauguration, when he was shown accepting her congratulations as if they had been apart for a long time. Lyudmila Putina has been reported to live in Sardinia, among other places, and to be spending time in Paris.
“She was a woman who loved, and was not loved,” Nataliya Gevorkyan, who wrote a biography of Putin in 2000, said in a recent interview in Paris.
She was an Aeroflot flight attendant from Kaliningrad when they met. He was a young KGB agent. He had already left one fiancée at the altar — also named Lyudmila.
She followed him to Dresden, then in East Germany, back to St. Petersburg, then on to Moscow when he took a job in the Kremlin. Along the way they had two daughters, both now grown.
As president, Putin has made a fetish of appearing to work inhuman hours, often interspersed with bouts of intense physical activity.
The Putins had entered the theater to brief and uncomfortable applause, with some in the audience standing awkwardly as if startled by their appearance. Their being together rated a news item by the RIA Novosti news agency. After the interview, conducted while they stood side by side in a room off the auditorium, the Putins left the theater. They missed the last two acts of a melodramatic ballet based on the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Victor Hugo novel.