MOSCOW -- What could be worse on one's 50th birthday than to spend it in a gloomy fortress, sitting in the center of a heavily polluted city as president of a problem-ridden country struggling for survival? Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin looked perfectly happy on the day of his anniversary, and the only people who are upset by his Kremlin tenure are his liberal critics.
Putin does not seem to be dismayed by the appalling gap between the very rich and the very poor, pathetic living standards in the provincial towns and the countryside, and the everlasting war in Chechnya. He radiates calm and determination and seems content with his newly found role as father figure of the nation and gravedigger of Russian democracy.
The president spent his birthday in grand fashion. He went to the Commonwealth of Independent States summit, where presidents of other post-Soviet states congratulated him with varying degrees of sincerity. One of them gave Putin a crocodile. The gift was to symbolize aggressiveness, fierceness and wisdom. It is not completely clear why the sleazy reptile is considered endowed with wisdom; probably, in the post-Soviet mind-set, every beast that attacks is wise.