First Person

by Natalya Timakova, Nataliya Gevorkyan, Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, etc.

Release Date: May, 2000

Edition: Paperback

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Engaging Enigma

First Person is a transcription of a series of interviews conducted by three Russian journalists with Vladimir Putin, his wife and daughters, friends, teachers, and colleagues. The book is written in a question-answer format which is usually effective but occasionally leaves the reader in doubt as to who is answering a particular question: Putin or one of the other interviewees.

Don't read this book expecting deep insight into Putin's political philosophy or details of his experience in the KGB. With that said, First Person is a useful and interesting account of Putin's life, family, and experiences. An occasional bit of insight either slips or is inserted into the conversations. (It's hard to believe that someone as in-control as Putin would really let something slip. I don't mean to be suspicious or derogatory, I'm just recognizing that Putin is a successful politician who climbed one of the most difficult -and dangerous- ladders in the world.) One bit of possible insight is the fact that Putin was KGB station chief in Dresden, East Germany, at the time that the Berlin wall was pulled down. He shared a facility with the Stasi, his East German counterparts. When mobs approached the Stasi facility. Putin cabled Moscow for help and direction. He received neither and left active duty with the KGB soon after his (premature?) return from that assignment. I'm sure he was a bit disillusioned by this experience, but the degree and nature of the disillusionment is not developed. No surprise here; successful politicians don't intentionally walk into mine fields.

Overall, the book was an interesting and light read. Putin describes himself as a hooligan in his youth who mended his ways primarily to achieve his goal of going to law school in preparation for a career in the KGB. He chose that career path after seeing a movie entitled the Sword and the Shield (the KGB logo) which prompted him to walk uninvited into the local KGB office in Leningrad to seek employment. The officer who met him advised him that the KGB seldom considered walk-in applicants and that he should attend university and study law as a means of preparing himself. Rather amazingly, he did exactly that and was recruited immediately upon graduation.

The book also contains numerous details about Putin's early political life in the administration of Anatoly Sobchak, the reform-minded mayor of Leningrad, and his subsequent steady rise in the national government as well as numerous anecdotes from his family life.

Great biography of Russia's president

Vladimir Putin's "First Person" is a biography in question and answer format. It gives a great insight into the man who is the leader of the largest country in the world. There are questions and answers from not only Putin himself, but also his old school teachers, KGB collegues and his wife and two daughters. Even so, this biography does not give a 'full picture' of the president as a person and much of his past (for example KGB) is not mentioned in great detail (that's why I took off a star) and does not give a deep insight as the book implies. This aside, and all considered, this is a good read and a good introduction to Pres. Putin.