Vladimir Putin: From Street-Smart Leningrad Boy to Master of Russia | NDTV Focus

This is the story of how Putin rose to power and stayed on to become the longest‑serving Master of Russia since the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Putin was a street‑smart boy from an impoverished family in Soviet Leningrad who understood that to achieve anything one would have to be shrewder than those around him. When the Soviet Union imploded, he saw his opportunity. No one could have imagined that this lowly former Lt. Colonel of the KGB would make it to the helm of the world’s largest country. On NDTV Focus we look at Vladimir Putin and how he became Master of Russia, a meteoric ascent that proved he positioned himself at the right place and at the right time to rise to the very top.