Legacy Building

“In no way should our initiative be seen as a personality cult.”

It’s always reassuring when Russian politicians begin their pitch that way.

Vlad Putin fans are pulling themselves together, bereft at his looming departure from the Russian Presidency, if not from power. The answer for keeping a polish on his ever shining star? A western import classic, the Presidential Library. If the bill passes, and it’s larded up with Putin allies, Putin, Yeltsin, and their successors will get state funded visitor centers of grandeur to commemorate their fab-ness.

As sponsor Mikhail Starshinov told Reuters, “State leaders are immortalised in one form or another in many civilised countries.”