Girls and Superheroes Spice Up Russia’s Presidential Race

The Russian race for President heats up as posters of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dressed as a superhero have mysteriously appeared in central Moscow. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Julia Iofee, Foreign Policy Magazine’s Msocow correspondent.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  Picture this: superheroes and sexy young women baring all or at least baring some.  Sound like this year’s summer blockbuster?  Well, it’s actually the current state of Russia’s 2012 presidential campaign. Julia Iofee is Foreign Policy Magazine’s Moscow correspondent.  Can you help us out here, please, Julia, who’s the superhero in this campaign?

Julia Iofee: Looks like it’s Vladimir Putin.

Mullins: Vladimir Putin, and he’s portrayed as a superhero for what reason?

Iofee: He’s portrayed in some posters that went up around Moscow a couple months ago as a James Bond-like character with the tag line [speaking Russian], which means ‘He’ll Cover You’ as in he’ll be your political cover.

Mullins: He’s got your back.

Iofee: Yeah.

Mullins: And Vladimir Putin is the current Prime Minister, former President.  Is there any real indication that he’s gonna be running again for President?

Iofee: Well, it seems like he has a nice faux grassroots campaign on the way.  Just last week we saw the emergence of a video campaign calling on young girls to tear it up for Putin.

Mullins: To tear it up for Putin, meaning?

Iofee: It’s a Russian slang term that means to be protective of someone, but they took the term literally and tore up their shirts.

Mullins: When they were looking at what?  I mean they were looking at Putin himself on the campaign trail, or the posters or what were they doing?

Iofee: He’s portrayed, they portray him as sort of a sex symbol and an adequate leader for the country.  And they feel that the best way to support him is to tear their shirts off for him.

Mullins: Is this part of the Vladimir Putin campaign machine?

Iofee: We don’t know for sure, but it very much seems like it.  What’s funny is that just after this campaign launched there was a bikini car wash to support Putin in Moscow.

Mullins: Are these things unusual?  I mean I know the weather is warm there, but does this kind of thing usually happen in presidential campaigns?

Iofee: Well, define presidential campaign.  All of these terms that we’re used to hearing — presidential campaign, election, primaries — they all exist in Russia, but they mean completely different things.  Russians have been hearing for a couple of years now that Putin and Medvedev come together and they’ll just decide who runs, and whoever runs will be the president.

Mullins: So, for Medvedev, the president now, is there any indication that actually he might decide to run again against Putin and somebody might adopt a similar campaign strategy in terms of showing skin?

Iofee: Well, he’s never been seen or portrayed himself as a sex symbol.  He’s seen as a kind of wimpy nerd which doesn’t go over well with the Russian public; which is why some kind of joking posters have gone up around Moscow showing him as Captain America, but the posters say Captain Russia, the First Ruler, and he’s holding of course, his famous iPad for which he’s become the butt of a lot of jokes by people who say he spends more of his time tweeting and playing Angry Birds than actually ruling the country, which falls to Vladimir Putin, sex symbol.

Mullins: Julia Iofee, thank you very much.

Iofee: Thank you.

Mullins: Julia Iofee, Foreign Policy Magazine’s Moscow correspondent.

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