— Ch. 1 · Childhood Shadows In Leningrad —
Vladimir Putin.
~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 8
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on the 7th of October 1952 in Leningrad. He grew up as the youngest of three children during a time when his family faced immense hardship. His older brother Viktor died of diphtheria and starvation in 1942 while Nazi forces besieged the city. The siege claimed the life of his maternal grandmother in 1941 and caused two other uncles to disappear on the Eastern Front. His father served in the Soviet Navy submarine fleet before being wounded in a destruction battalion of the NKVD. This early exposure to loss and state violence shaped a worldview that prioritized survival above all else. The young boy attended School No. 193 at Baskov Lane where he practiced sambo and judo by age twelve. He read works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in his free time while studying law at Leningrad State University from 1970 to 1975. His thesis focused on international trading principles but his true education began elsewhere. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and remained a member until it dissolved in 1991. A professor named Anatoly Sobchak taught him business law and later became Mayor of Leningrad. Their relationship would become the foundation for Putin's future political ascent.
Dresden And The Kgb Years
In September 1984 Putin traveled to Moscow for advanced training at the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute. He was then sent to Dresden in East Germany where he worked as a translator under a cover identity. From 1985 to 1990 he served as a liaison officer to the Stasi secret police and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. The official Kremlin site states that the East German regime awarded him a bronze medal for faithful service to their National People's Army. Journalist Catherine Belton wrote in 2020 that this downplaying of his role might have been a cover for deeper involvement with terrorist groups like the Red Army Faction. Anonymous sources claimed militants presented him with lists of weapons delivered to West Germany. Klaus Zuchold alleged that Putin recruited neo-Nazis and handled wireless communications affairs. However a 2023 investigation by Der Spiegel found these anonymous sources to be notorious fabulists with prior convictions for false statements. During the fall of the Berlin Wall on the 9th of November 1989 Putin reportedly saved files from the Soviet Cultural Center while burning KGB documents. He returned to Leningrad in early 1990 as part of the active reserves. On the 20th of August 1991 he resigned from active KGB service following the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev.