Among the best wishes of the leaders of “friendly” countries and the celebrations imposed in Russian schools, Russian leader Vladimir Putin turns 74 today, approaching the age Stalin was at the time of his death.
“The president is receiving numerous messages of greetings and telegrams for his birthday from heads of state and government of foreign countries, leaders of international organizations and representatives of socio-political circles”, announced the Kremlin, listing the numerous telephone conversations, including those with the Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, the Azerbaijani Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Belarusian Alexander Lukashenko, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Turkmen Serdar Berdimuhamedov. Putin had called Donald Trump for his birthday in June and it is not excluded that the American president could reciprocate today.
Meanwhile, against the backdrop of increasingly repressive policies, an uncodified but existing cult of personality, as well as a campaign of real militarization of society, schools and public officials have received special instructions on how to correctly send greetings to the president.
The campaign for the leader’s birthday had the slogan “Best Wishes to the President”, according to the independent newspaper Meduza. Evghenia Khalilova, an official from the Vladimir region, published the guidelines on her social media profile. The instructions stated that greetings to Putin should be published exclusively on personal social media accounts, specifying that those posted via public or community pages “would not be accepted.” The newspaper Agentstvo estimated that at least 1,100 posts with the hashtag #AuguriAlPresidente were published on VKontakte. In Bashkiria, the requirements for greetings were stricter: According to guidelines reviewed by the Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti, all posts had to be published by 2 pm local time and include a quote from Putin regarding the region. Each institution was required to guarantee the publication of at least one post. The newspaper counted at least 400 identically styled greeting messages from Bashkiria over the course of three hours. Telegram channel Verstka also found that many of the congratulatory messages from governors, deputies and other officials were worded in virtually identical terms. Putin received over 1,600 wishes of “iron health and boundless energy”. This expression was used by the leaders of various regions, by deputies of the State Duma, but none of the public officials who wished Putin “very good health” made any reference to his age.
The initiatives even reached nursery schools where the teachers, Meduza reports, illustrated the “life path” of the head of state to the children and had them record videos while they wished him well.