Most political leaders have a quirk that sets them apart from the rest of us.
Baroness Thatcher could survive on four hours of sleep a night, Gordon Brown was said to have eaten four KitKats a day and Lord Cameron was said to have a black belt in ‘relaxing’.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, 71, has what Kremlin insiders call a “special attitude toward mysticism” and a deep belief in shamanism: that individuals can communicate with the spiritual world.
Which, as the story goes, has seen him bathe in the blood of a Siberian deer to enhance his manhood, practice voodoo with a black wolf, and constantly seek advice from noted mystics.
But even by the Russian dictator’s strange standards, the latest reports (that he has visited shamans in Mongolia and Siberia to discuss military operations with them and even ask their blessing for the use of nuclear missiles (or “weapons of the gods”, as they say) call them) – sounds a bit exaggerated.
There were many strange things about these visits.
For starters, Mongolia is part of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant in response to Putin’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children; I should have stopped him on the spot. Putin knew this, but he still went, making it his third visit in a decade, ostensibly to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the victory of Mongolian and Soviet troops over Japanese forces. (And presumably relied on Mongolia’s dependence on Russian energy for its safe passage.)
Kremlin insiders say Vladimir Putin has a deep belief in shamanism: that individuals can communicate with the spirit world. In the photo, a shaman performs a ritual in Siberia.
Along the way, he stopped in the remote, mountainous region of Tuva, a bastion of pagan beliefs where they speak their own language and participate in a rather specific form of Mongol fighting, where, on a previous trip, he had supposedly participated in voodoo. practices.
He was there, according to the official version, to give a lecture on patriotism to schoolchildren. But the more interesting story – backed by exiled sources Mikhail Zygar, founder of the independent television channel Dozhd, and Putin’s former speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov – was that Putin was desperate to consult the world’s most powerful shamans before stepping up. his war in Ukraine. Because even he didn’t want to “anger the spirits” by proceeding without their blessing.
If it’s true, it’s incredible. A world leader who consults mystics on whether or not he should deploy catastrophic weapons that could start World War III.
Therefore, perhaps not surprising, the Kremlin has issued a categorical denial: “The mentioned circumstances related to the visit of the Russian president to Mongolia in September 2024 have no connection with reality.”
But Putin seems to have form.
Along with Sergei Shoigu (the defense minister whom he fired in May), he is said to have consulted mystics ahead of his 2022 invasion of Ukraine and was reportedly encouraged when he was assured of victory. Eight months after the war, he supposedly held two more meetings with shamans to check that everything was going according to plan.
And last year, Russian state media reported that, at Putin’s request, Kara-ool Dopchun-ool – Russia’s “supreme shaman” – had asked “the sun, the moon and the stars” to protect troops from the Kremlin in Ukraine.
Putin and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh attend a wreath-laying ceremony in the country’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, last month.
All of which may seem crazy to you or me. But not in Russia, where some boast that there are more occult doctors than doctors and a vein of paganism, shamans and mystics dates back to the Tsarist era. The most famous, of course, was Grigori Rasputin. The sex-crazed Siberian priest who somehow bewitched the family of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, slept with anyone he could get his filthy hands on and fanned the flames of hatred against the monarchy that paved the way for the revolution of 1917. Decades later, Josef Stalin is said to have ordered a high-ranking shaman to perform a ritual to break the Nazi siege of Stalingrad.
Soviet state-sponsored television broadcast live shamanic healing sessions in the late 1980s, in which shamans “cured” people suffering from cancer and heart problems.
And Russian officials have long been rumored to invite occultists to international talks to influence the outcome. However, not all shamans cheer on the Kremlin.
In 2019, 55-year-old shaman Alexander Gabyshev left Siberia for Moscow to “exorcise the demon Putin” and restore democracy. Two years later, after completing 2,600 miles of a roughly 6,000-mile hike, he was arrested by Putin’s security staff and locked up in a psychiatric prison, where he has been ever since.
According to Alexander Pryanishnikov, a human rights lawyer who defended Gabyshev, the authorities want to keep him locked up because they truly believe that, far from his homeland, the shaman is deprived of his power.
And for a time, Alyona Polyn – a reality TV star and leader of a group called The Empire of the Strongest Witches – was Putin’s “favorite witch.” No wonder. He used magic spells to boost his ratings, worked for their secret services, provided psychological support to Russian troops and their families, and collected voodoo dolls, black candles, and demonic figures.
The story goes that Putin did not want to “anger the spirits” by using catastrophic weapons in Ukraine without consulting shamans. In the photo, a shaman performs a ritual near a poster of the Russian president in 2021.
But this summer, she was suddenly detained and charged with fraud and extremism. Maybe she gave him advice he didn’t like.
Because not all of Putin’s shamanic sessions focus on his military operations. He is as obsessed with immortality, strength, and anti-aging as he is with global domination.
To that end, over the years he has treated us to plenty of macho vacation photos, mostly showing him topless riding a horse, breaking wooden sticks with his bare hands, rafting, or demonstrating his judo skills. , usually in Tuva.
It was also in Tuva that Putin and Shoigu, a native of the region, are said to have attended a shamanic ritual involving a black wolf. The goal was to improve the dictator’s health: there were unconfirmed reports of a heart attack.
First, the wolf was sacrificed. Then a piece of white cloth was soaked in his blood and burned. And finally, a black crow circled in the swirling smoke above. All of which was presented to a delighted Putin as “a great success.”
It is also said that it was Shoigu who introduced Putin to the benefits of bloodbaths, which supposedly increase sexual virility and slow aging. Not that there seems to be much evidence.
Putin accepted it all with enthusiasm. And a favorite location for bloodbaths is a palace in the Altai Mountains, 2,375 miles east of Moscow, with its own deer farm where, before a presidential visit, 70 kilos of deer antlers were piled up.
But no matter how many deer Putin and Alina Kabaeva (his 41-year-old gymnast lover, who is also said to be a fan) have slaughtered and bathed in blood, they apparently haven’t quite done the job.
Because, in June, Russia’s top scientists were ordered to develop an anti-aging wonder drug that would turn back the biological clock of Putin and his increasingly gray inner circle. The goal was to reduce cellular deterioration, prevent cognitive and sensory decline, and strengthen the immune system. Research that would normally take years and require billions.
“We received this article and, frankly, I was stunned,” said one of the researchers. ‘The message baffled me. That is, right now (during the war) we have to leave everything.” The diversion of resources was described as “confusing.” Or downright alarming.
It’s hard to decide what’s more terrifying: the idea that the war in Ukraine – possibly including nuclear weapons – may be in the hands of the shamans of Siberia. Or that, along the way, Putin may discover the key to eternal life.