Short Biography of Vladimir Putin

* Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born in what was then Leningrad on Oct. 7, 1952.

* In 1970 he entered the law faculty of the Leningrad State University.

* His career began in 1975 in his hometown. He got a position in a department called Service Number One in the KGB's Leningrad office.

* Putin met his wife, Lyudmila, a former schoolteacher, while in St. Petersburg.

* Finally, in 1984, he got a much-hoped-for promotion: he was selected for a coveted yearlong stint at the most prestigious intelligence institute in the country - the Red Banner Institute of intelligence (today named after Andropov).

* In 1985, he was assigned to a job in East Germany but whether Putin spent much time in the prestigious KGB headquarters at Karlshorst in East Berlin is unclear.

* When he returned home in 1990 Putin was not retained by the KGB's first team - its foreign-intelligence directorate.

* But in 1990, as a democratic revolution was brewing in his home city, he took a job that would change his career trajectory.

* In 1991, he formally resigned from the KGB's active reserve.

* As early as 1990, St. Petersburg lawmakers formally investigated Putin's "mismanagement" of export licenses issued to local metal traders.

* Sobchak appointed him campaign manager in running for re-election.

* In 1996 the now infamous Pavel Borodin, who managed the Kremlin's vast trove of property and investments, was looking for a deputy.

* In less than six months he was moving up again, this time with the blessing of the then departing Chubais.

* In July 1998, Yeltsin named Putin head of the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB.

* Yeltsin rewarded him in the spring of 1999, adding head of the Security Council to his job description.

Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich  was born in what was then Leningrad on Oct. 7, 1952. An only child, he described in a recent interview his father as "an ordinary man," a decorated war veteran who went on to a life spent mainly toiling in a metal factory. Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin died last August in his late 70s, the very week his son was appointed prime minister (his mother had died just a year and a half before).

Putin was a decent but not brilliant student. In 1970 he entered the law faculty of the Leningrad State University. His thesis adviser Valery Musin says he got "good but not great grades,"but was a "meticulous" student. (Just what his grades were is not clear: his file has been pulled from the archives of the university.)

His career began in 1975 in his hometown. He got a position in a department called Service Number One in the KGB's Leningrad office. This was not the famed First Main Directorate (now the SVR, the Russian CIA) of the KGB, home to the Soviet Union's James Bonds. Service Number One, which existed in every major provincial city, was charged with conducting foreign intelligence on Soviet soil in effect, trying to recruit visiting foreigners for the KGB's purposes. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, deputy head of the Leningrad KGB at the time Putin joined, describes it as "a very small, auxiliary department." And Putin, adds Kalugin, "was a nobody."

Putin met his wife, Lyudmila, a former schoolteacher, while in St. Petersburg. Then as now, friends described him as an  intensely private man, unusually secretive, they say, in talking about personal matters. Aleksei Kudrin, who worked with him side by side for five years in the 1990s, to this day says he has no idea when, exactly, Putin met Lyudmila, or under what circumstances. The couple have two daughters, 13 and 14, who attend a German school in Moscow, and whom they intend to keep out of the public eye during the presidential campaign and beyond.

In his early KGB days the first characteristic that many of his friends note about Putin quickly became evident: a capacity for uncomplaining hard work. For nine years he worked in the unglamorous Leningrad job, hoping for an overseas assignment. Finally, in 1984, he got a much-hoped-for promotion: he was selected for a coveted yearlong stint at the most prestigious intelligence institute in the country—the Red Banner Institute of Intelligence (today named after Andropov). There he mastered German, which he had started at the university, and picked up English.

The academy served as his ticket abroad. In 1985, he was assigned to a job in East Germany but whether Putin spent much time in the prestigious KGB headquarters at Karlshorst in East Berlin is unclear. What is known is that he was assigned to Dresden, where he spent five years under the cover of the deputy director of the Society of Friendship, a social and cultural club.

Contrary to some published reports that have Putin trying to steal economic secrets during his Dresden years, former intelligence officers say he worked on what the KGB called the "PR line": gathering political intelligence and trying to recruit foreigners. Whatever he did, East Germany's famous spymaster, Markus Wolf, says he "never heard of Putin," and that Dresden was a "secondary" post. Kalugin goes further, calling Dresden a "backwater."

When he returned home in 1990 Putin was not retained by the KGB's first team its foreign-intelligence directorate. He was shunted again to the much less prestigious personnel directorate, which farmed its officers out to a variety of domestic assignments. And at 39, Putin was assigned to a job normally handed out to retired officers: assistant to the deputy dean of the Leningrad State University, his alma mater.

But in 1990, as a  democratic revolution was brewing in his home city, he took a job that would change his career trajectory. He became an assistant to one of his former law professors. Anatoly Sobchak was then a prominent democratic activist and member of the People's Congress of the U.S.S.R. A year later he became the first democratically elected mayor of Leningrad. Putin followed him to city hall.

In 1991, he formally resigned from the KGB's active reserve. Many St. Petersburg democrats believed - and still believe - that Putin was assigned by the KGB to the mayor's office. Putin himself has given an explanation. "I had to make a choice," he told a close friend later on. "Either to stay in the KGB, or to work for a democratic politician."

Putin quickly became Sobchak's indispensable man. He proved himself to be a loyal and highly effective manager, becoming "the gray cardinal" of the St. Petersburg government - the man to see if things needed to get done. Sobchak put him in charge of foreign economic relations, and Putin by all accounts had no trouble grasping the material.

His record was hardly unblemished. As early as 1990, St. Petersburg lawmakers formally investigated Putin's "mismanagement" of export licenses issued to local metal traders. They recommended that he be fired, but Sobchak ignored them. It was in St. Petersburg in 1996 that Putin would get his first taste of democratic politics, and it wasn't pleasant.

Sobchak appointed him  campaign manager in running for re-election. He ran against one of his other deputies Vladimir Yakovlev, who was backed by the powerful mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. Sobchak ran - and Putin managed - an uninspired campaign and lost. The victor then offered Putin a job in his government. Putin rejected it, displaying the other quality that would soon ingratiate him with even more powerful politicians: loyalty. "It's better to be hanged for loyalty," he told Yakovlev, "than be rewarded for betrayal." His career in politics seemed to be over.

The now infamous Pavel Borodin, who managed the Kremlin's vast trove of property and investments, was looking for a deputy. He was looking for assistance in overseeing the Kremlin's extensive foreign economic assets, mostly in the former Soviet bloc. With his KGB background and experience abroad, Putin seemed to him the right candidate. He took the job in 1996.

The move to Borodin's office would be fateful for Putin's career, the move that changed everything. In less than six months he was moving up again, this time with the blessing of the then departing Chubais. He became a deputy to Valentin Yumashev next to Tatyana Dyachenko, Boris Yeltsin's most trusted aide. He put Putin in charge of the powerful "oversight department," a job that entailed riding herd on the vast nationwide bureaucracy and on regional governors. He also enforced loyalty among his staff KGB style: many have no doubt their phones were tapped. Key members of the Yeltsin family were impressed.

In July 1998, Yeltsin named Putin head of the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB. It  was a job the president would have given only to the most trusted of aides. By the following spring the Kremlin was in the midst of a fierce power struggle with the then prime minister Yevgeny Primakov. Himself a KGB veteran, Primakov had a large constituency within the agency. But Putin had installed his own key people and, to the Kremlin's delight, managed to dismiss several of those who were loyal to Primakov.

Yeltsin rewarded him in the spring of 1999, adding head of the Security Council to his job description.

Source: www.aha.ru/~rigik/shbio.html