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Putins Finally Appear Together, to Announce Split In Rare Outing, Putins Declare They Will Split
(about 5 hours later)
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin announced on Thursday that he plans to divorce his wife of 29 years, Lyudmila, who for years has barely appeared in public, prompting widespread chatter about the secretive leader’s private life. MOSCOW — For years Moscow has been captivated by speculation about the apparently moribund marriage of President Vladimir V. Putin. He was in love with an Olympic gymnast half his age, some said. His wife, Lyudmila, was not seen in public for months at a time, and when she did appear with the president they behaved like strangers.
The couple made the announcement to a television crew after attending a ballet performance at the Kremlin together — an unusual event in itself, since in recent years Lyudmila Putin has appeared in public only rarely. The Kremlin and Mr. Putin vigorously denied that his marriage of nearly 30 years was in trouble, and a newspaper that suggested otherwise was shut down abruptly. But on Thursday night Mr. Putin made a rare public appearance with Lyudmila to announce that they were divorcing, the first time since Peter the Great in 1698 that a sitting leader of Russia dissolved his marriage.
“It was our mutual decision, our marriage is over,” Mr. Putin said. “We practically don’t see each other. Each of us has our own life.” The true circumstances of their relationship are shrouded in secrecy. But Mr. Putin, 60, has made housecleaning a focus of his third presidential term, shutting out Kremlin players he no longer trusts and tacking toward a conservative electorate whose loyalty seems assured.
Mrs. Putin said, by way of explanation, that she does not like publicity or air travel. “We are very fond of our children,” she said. “We are proud of them and we see them all the time.” Stripped of the political institutions that existed even during the Soviet era, Russia is largely governed by Mr. Putin’s ideas and frame of mind. Free of the election cycle and concerned about his popularity, he may now hope to create a more open personal narrative, departing from his habit of secrecy.
She added: “We will forever remain very close people. I’m grateful to Vladimir Vladimirovich that he supports me.” In Moscow on Thursday night, Kremlinologists watched the televised announcement, wondering how much change to expect in the coming months — in particular, whether to expect a new first lady.
Like many major announcements during Mr. Putin’s tenure, this one was carefully orchestrated, if a little awkward. After the two walked out of the ballet, a waiting reporter asked the two, “How did you like ‘Esmerelda?'” Mr. Putin murmured his approval, and his wife noted that it seemed that the dancers “were practically fluttering.” “We have seen the first act; the question is whether there will be a second. Is there a woman in whose name this was done?” said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who has informally advised the Kremlin in the past. “The main question, the intrigue, is not in divorce. It’s in this: Will he get married again?”
Then — remarkably — the reporter asked why Mr. and Mrs. Putin never appeared in public together, noting — even more remarkably — that “there are rumors going around.” Mr. Putin glanced at his wife briefly, then looked into the camera and began to explain that his work involved exhaustive public appearances. Thursday’s announcement, as the couple walked out of the first act of the ballet “La Esmeralda,” appeared orchestrated and a bit awkward. A waiting reporter for state television asked the two, “How did you like ‘Esmeralda?’ ” and then launched into a question that, under normal circumstances, could have gotten her fired: “You so rarely appear together, and there are rumors that you do not live together. Is that so?”
“Some people like it, some don’t — but there are some people who are absolutely incompatible with it,” he said. “Lyudmila Aleksandrovna has done eight years, even nine years, duty. So, to sum it up, it was a joint decision.” Mr. Putin inhaled, glanced at his wife, and said, “That’s true.”
“My activities, my work is very public,” he went on. “Some people like it, some don’t — but there are some people who are absolutely incompatible with it. Lyudmila Aleksandrovna has done eight years’, even nine years’, duty. So, to sum it up, it was a joint decision.”
It fell to Mrs. Putin to come out and say it: “Our marriage is over,” she said, “because we practically never see each other.”
Russia remains a deeply conservative country where the Orthodox church is still influential, and Mr. Putin’s popularity rests in large part on the support of middle-aged women, who might react badly if he remarries a younger woman.
“He is taking a risk,” said Alexander Rahr, the author of a biography of Mr. Putin. “We know the Russian church will be quiet, they will make no comment. But people will look at this not with great sympathy. The divorce of the president is always risky, especially in Russia, where he is considered a symbol of the new Russian statehood.”
But Russian analysts were largely positive, and predicted that most Russians would approve. Aleksei Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information, said it would be “a great relief” for Mr. Putin to stop pretending that his marriage was intact, and that the announcement was timed for minimal furor, at a moment when Mr. Putin has no elections to worry about.
Ms. Kryshtanovskaya said she believed that the divorce would serve to improve his image. “The divorce of Putin is a step toward democracy,” she said. “He could hide as much as he wanted, but he chose to reveal that he is human, he can have bad luck. He chose transparency.”
She was less certain, she said, of the reaction should he choose to marry the former gymnast, Alina Kabayeva. “If it turns out to be Kabayeva, they have agreed to it a long time ago,” she said. “But I would not hurry if I were Putin.”
For at least five years, rumors have linked Mr. Putin to Ms. Kabayeva, who won a gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics, and who in recent years has served as a member of the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament. In 2008, after a Moscow newspaper, Moskovsky Korrespondent, reported that he planned to marry Ms. Kabayeva, publication of the newspaper was suspended abruptly for what its parent company said were “financial reasons.”
The newspaper article prompted Mr. Putin, in a response to a reporter’s question, to issue a rare, and firm, denial that his marriage was in any sort of trouble. “What you are saying has not a single word of truth,” he said, adding, “ I have always disliked those who with their infected noses and erotic fantasies, break into other people’s private affairs.” In what seems in retrospect like the first step in a planned rollout, Ms. Kabayeva, who turned 30 last month, received an unusual dose of attention on May 25, with the broadcast of a program titled “Kabayeva,” which was shown on the country’s largest federal television channel, Channel One.
The program reviewed her athletic career, which included a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and her more recent work as a member of Parliament. Among the public figures who praised her on the show were Valentina Tereshkova, the first female astronaut here, the singer Iosif Kobzon and Ms. Kabayeva’s coach, who is married to a businessman in Mr. Putin’s inner circle.
On the program, she indirectly addressed the rumors about her and Mr. Putin, saying with a laugh that she has no children, though “everyone in Russia, and perhaps in other countries as well, writes that I have two or three children.”
“But I, unfortunately, do not have any children,” she said. “But I want to be a mom, of course. But so far, I don’t.”
For several years, Russian news outlets have reported that the president and his wife were living separately and also reported rumors that Mr. Putin and Ms. Kabayeva had children together. In an interview that accompanied her appearance on the cover of Russian Vogue, Ms. Kabayeva said that the boy rumored to be her son was her nephew.
The announcement of the divorce comes shortly before what would have been Mr. and Mrs. Putin’s 30th anniversary, in July.
A former airline hostess, Lyudmila Putin had never shown much interest in her public role, and told an interviewer that she was filled with dread when she learned in 1999 that her husband would succeed President Boris N. Yeltsin, according to “First Person,” a biography of Mr. Putin.
“My girlfriend called me and said, ‘Did you hear?’ ” she said. “I asked, ‘What?’ I found out from her. I cried all day. Because I understood that my private life had ended with this.”
Neither of the Putins showed much sadness on Thursday night. When the television reporter asked the president’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, whether they had made the announcement after “Esmeralda” because it was a sad ballet, he said no.
“It’s not a sad ballet,” Mr. Peskov told Interfax. “It’s a life-affirming ballet.”