Unearthed home video shows nerdy-looking Putin on holiday in 1990s

A shell suit, a long combover haircut and a paunch were all parts of the Vladimir Putin look book back in the early 1990s, it turns out.

New footage has emerged which paints a very different picture to the strongman image the dictator has tried to project in recent years.

The video, obtained by Finnish broadcaster YLE, shows Putin on a visit to Finland about 30 years ago.

Aged about 40, Putin had just become an adviser to Anatoly Sobchak, the then-mayor of St Petersburg. He had spent the previous years working as an officer for the KGB, Russia’s secret police.

The video shows Putin and Sobchak playing table tennis against the mayor’s bodyguards. Later footage shows the group going out fishing, though Putin keeps his back to the camera.

It was shot at a villa owned by Finnish industrial trading company Thomesto, about 60 miles west of Helsinki.

Putin’s then-wife, Lyudmilla, is also in the video, gutting a fish. Maria and Katerina, their two daughters, are also there.

YLE’s source, who remained anonymous, said Putin did not say much on the trip, but he did ask what would happen if “one and a half million Russians” crossed the border into Finland.

At the time, Russia was suffering food shortages in parts of the country.

YLE said the video was a “far cry from the macho, dictatorial image that Putin has since hewn for himself”.

Watch it here.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.