Thursday, April 17, 2008
I'll see your Bruni... [Andrew Stuttaford]
...and raise you one gymnast. If rumors reported in the London Daily Mail are correct, Vladimir Putin has no intention of being left behind by that lucky President Sarkozy:
Rumours are circulating in Moscow that Vladimir Putin has left his wife and is set to marry a former rhythmic gymnast less than half his age. The 56-year-old Russian president is said to have formed a relationship with the beautiful Alina Kabaeva, 24, and the couple have decided to tie the knot.
The Daily Mail has a rather naughtily illustrated article on Ms. Kabaeva here. She is, apparently, a former model, a former actress (she has appeared in an action film) and, possibly less respectably, a current member of the Russian parliament.
No Czech, of course, especially the Czech Republic's staunchly Thatcherite President, Vaclav Klaus, could be expected to take that sort of challenge from a Russian, um, lying down. And he hasn't. The London Times has the details:
When the Czech President confessed that he was having an affair with an airline stewardess less than half his age, most of the country shrugged. Indeed, the nation's biggest newspaper said most people would be impressed and regard him as “a real man”...His first indiscretion with a blonde stewardess — Eva Svobodová — was in 1991, when he was a rising political star of post-Communist Czechoslovakia. The second time was in 2002, this time with Klára Lohniská, 24, who worked on his official aircraft...The morning after winning re-election last month, he was photographed with Petra Bednárová, 25, also a stewardess on the government aircraft, outside a hotel in Prague. He admitted the affair this week and confessed that it would be difficult to explain to his wife, Livia.
I'm shocked, shocked.
04/17 03:24 PM
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