The Week Staff

The autocrat’s Darwinian worldview was shaped by a grim childhood, the KGB, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The autocrat’s Darwinian worldview was shaped by a grim childhood, the KGB, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here’s everything you need to know:

How did Putin grow up?

Born in 1952, Putin spent his childhood in St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad), in the shadow of World War II. During the Nazis’ 871-day siege of Leningrad, more than a million citizens died; starvation drove some people to cannibalism. Putin’s father was a factory worker and devoted Communist who’d reportedly worked for the NKVD, the party’s feared law enforcement arm. Putin grew up in a communal apartment in a drab housing complex where he and his friends chased rats in the hallways for amusement. The short, scrawny boy was bullied, driving him to take up judo and sambo, a Soviet martial art that teaches participants to remain stoic even in the face of great pain. Wily and inscrutable, Putin earned a reputation as a ruthless street fighter unafraid to take on far larger opponents. He learned, he later wrote, that when threatened, “You must hit first, and hit so hard that your opponent will not rise to his feet.”

When did he become a spy?

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