Putin’s personal life

As befits a KGB man, Putin has managed to keep his personal life largely under wraps. We do know that he married his wife, Lyudmila, in 1983, but that they lived apart for a long time and announced their divorce in 2013. Lyudmila has described him as a workaholic and has since remarried. The couple has two daughters, who attended college under false names and now are academics in their early 30s. In recent years, Putin has been linked with a number of women, notably the former gymnast and politician Alina Kabaeva. A vain man, the president is believed to have had cosmetic treatments to maintain his youthful looks in recent years, including Botox, an eye lift, and cheek fillers. Today, he lives and works in isolation at Novo-Ogaryovo, the presidential estate outside Moscow, rising in the late morning, and keeping his courtiers waiting while he works out in the pool and the gym. His favorite sport is ice hockey: He plays as much as he can with his intimates, who are mostly oligarchs and associates from St. Petersburg, and fills out the teams with bodyguards. He invariably scores several goals, and his side always wins.