It’s been a bumper year for President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings. By July, independent pollsters had him riding at 87%, making him the most popular leader in the G7.
By late November this had risen to 89.9%, according to the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, who said the numbers had been boosted by the country’s military intervention in Syria.
With more macho gym photo shoots and adventures in mini-submarines released to his adoring fans in 2015, this was the year the Russian president built upon his impressive cult of personality.
As a result, his image has become ubiquitous across the country, so what better way to chart the year than to look at how the premier was celebrated by his public.
Bart Putin
In August, a portrait of Putin Simpson hit the headlines when it was stolen from a Moscow gallery by thieves, The Moscow Times reported.
The artwork, titled Man of an Era by Turkmen artist Amir Kerr, had sold in just 15 minutes on the exhibition’s opening night.
Thankfully, the painting turned up just two days later at a local police station.
На выставке молодых художников Who Art Who кто-то стащил картину с портретом Путина. http://t.co/UPFoqQui7z pic.twitter.com/zHTOE652xy
— Афиша Город (@afishagorod) August 26, 2015
But this wasn’t the only Springfield reference thrown at the Kremlin in 2015.
Earlier in August a video of the opening sequence of The Simpsons surfaced on the Russian internet, but featuring a few marked differences: a cartoon billboard showed a character that looked very much like Putin enjoying a naked horse ride through Crimea, while Bart’s famous blackboard lines had been altered to repeatedly slander the Russian president.
The video reportedly became a big hit in Ukraine, much to the upset of the Kremlin.
3D Putin
In early November, an exhibition in central Russia came up with an ingenious way to bring Putin to life for citizens not lucky enough to meet him face-to-face: a 3D model version mapping the contours of his face.
According to news site Meduza, the installation at the Krasnoyarsk library had been embossed for the benefit of the blind and visually impaired, who could now “experience the majesty” of Putin for themselves.
Now even the blind can experience "the majesty" of #Putin @DarthPutinKGB in 3D https://t.co/fE7gLZkvZY #Russia pic.twitter.com/vs41xCl1tI
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) November 5, 2015
Fitspo Putin
This year, the president continued to build on his macho image and released new pictures of himself engaged in a range of physical activities, spurring a series of Instagram memes in September.
Taking inspiration from “fitspiration”, a key Instagram trend this year, Putinspiration was born, a parody account of the president engaging in various hard man activities paired with motivational quotes.
“The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen,” says one post. “If it doesn’t challenge you it doesn’t change you,” says another, imposed over Putin swimming butterfly stroke in a freezing cold Siberian lake. Food for thought come New Year’s day.
Chocolate Putin
In December, Putin’s sweeter side was celebrated by a sculptor who entered a life-sized edible effigy of the president into the St Petersburg chocolate fair.
Whilst it’s unclear how they ascertained the president’s exact measurements, the creation used more than 70kg of chocolate. The artist said the material represented the president perfectly, being both hard and malleable.
A video of the statue also surfaced showing what appeared to be an oversized version of Putin’s dog Connie being added as a chocolate accessory before being set with a hairdryer and put on display.
#SanPetesburgo Elaboran estatua de chocolate de Vladimir Putin tamaño real !Asombroso! @MesaDeOpinion pic.twitter.com/mnry3SvSpy
— E González Anguiano (@eglez_anguiano) December 12, 2015
“As far as we know, there is no other chocolate sculpture of this size of a secular leader in the world,” said the organisers of the festival, who said they planned to submit it to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Artistic licence
Another artist pushed her creative licence by using her breasts to create tributes to Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.
As artist Irina Romanovskaya wrote on LiveJournal, the process is more complicated than some might expect: “Any mistake can mean you have to start all over again.”
Russian artist paints portraits of Vladimir Putin with her breasts http://t.co/bz9yyZSNt8 pic.twitter.com/GldrUrz728
— deathandtaxes (@DeathAndTaxes) September 29, 2015
But when asked whether her subjects were ever likely to see her creations she seemed hesitant: “How would they react if they found out about the unconventional painting technique?”
Waxwork Putin
Fans abroad can always rely on Madame Tussauds, the waxwork museum, for a face-to-face with their hero. Though that said, model Putins have not always had the easiest time of it.
Last a year a topless activist from the feminist group, Femen, used a metal chisel to stab the wax Putin in the face whilst screaming “Putin is a dictator”, leaving him broken on the floor beside his fellow world leaders at the Grevin museum in Paris.
Topless Femen Protester Fined for Stabbing Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin's Waxwork http://t.co/dDBfuf7D7U #russia #ukraine #p2 via @art2u2
— Paul Garrett (@PaulGarrettATX) October 16, 2014
