Putin bathes in deer antler extract, according to report

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly taken over a dozen trips with a cancer specialist and regularly bathes in deer antler extract to give his health a boost.

In a report by Russian investigative news outlet Proekt, Putin has increasingly become engrossed with his health in recent years and takes multiple trips to the resort city of Sochi accompanied by doctors from Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital.

Referencing contracts between the hospital and hotels where its staff members stayed in Sochi, the investigative report further claims the number of medics in Putin’s circle increased from five in 2016 and 2017 to nine in 2019.

The report said that oncologist-surgeon Evgeny Selivanov is one of Putin’s most frequent medical attendants. He flew to the Russian president 35 times and spent 166 days in his vicinity between 2016 and 2020.

Only two doctors are reported to have spent more time with Putin - two otolaryngologists (ear, nose and throat specialists).

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Proekt noted that they are typically the first health specialists to diagnose thyroid diseases and cancers.

The report further mentioned that a source said medical circles believe Putin to have undergone a complicated procedure that is related to a type of thyroid disease during a 16 day-period of self-isolation he underwent last September and when he cast a remote ballot in the Duma election.

In July 2021, Proekt, also known as Agentstvo, was the first Russian news site to be declared an “undesirable organisation” by Moscow. This was also around the time when some journalists were also declared “foreign agents”.

A journalist with independent Russian news outlet Meduza also contributed to the report of Putin seeking out medical treatments that didn’t have much of a scientific nature.

Meduza was also declared a “foreign agent” in April 2021 and had its website blocked in Russia last month over its reporting of the war in Ukraine.

Putin was reportedly introduced to the idea of taking baths in an extract made from deer antlers by his current defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. He has been at the centre of rumours that believe he is planning a coup against Putin as he has been out of the public view in recent weeks.

In the mid-2000s, when Shoigu was the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, he reportedly brought Putin to Altai, which is where an extract is made from the residing red deer antlers, which contained pantocrine. The extract is claimed to have therapeutic properties.

Putin is also claimed to have submerged himself in a bathtub of the extract on numerous occasions, which apparently prompted antler baths to grow in popularity amongst Russian elites.

The pantocrine extract supposedly helps the cardiovascular system and renews the skin. It also is claimed to boost “male potency”.

Elsewhere, Proekt reported that animal rights activists likened the process of cutting off the deers’ living antlers - which happens in spring when the antlers have not yet been ossified and are still full of blood - to the pain of people getting their fingernails pulled out.

Ouch.

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