So now we know for sure: Putin “enjoys events involving the participation of fauna” (his own words).
The whole world has seen the Russian president swanning around (he he, see what I did there?) on his ultralight, pursued by just two disorientated looking cranes.
The spectacle was so bizarre that, beyond a few zany pictures and references to Soviet pop tunes, bloggers and liberal commentators struggled to come up with any real zingers apart from the obvious. Maybe Putin will fly away South every year and not return till spring? Is he the new Alpha-crane? Is he fooling the Russian people into following him, just like the cranes (who were also bred in captivity)? Dissident artist Alexander Melamid wrote in Snob magazine that the president was reprising a work of underground art from the 1970s, when a group of intellectuals dressed up as birds and sat on eggs at a Moscow gallery. Putin parodied himself.
And there was still a lot of crazy left in the dear leader. In an interview with Russia Today, his first since the controversial re-election, Putin talked up the benefits of group sex. In a bizarre reference to Pussy Riot, he said that like any collective work, it gives some people the opportunity to slack off.
But he reserved his most wacky statement for the U.S. elections: that Putin is ready to work with Mitt Romney. Nevertheless, Putin is not completely mad: just in case, he will grow the military (with U.S. help).
