THE IRON CURTAIN

He liked the peace of his Italianate palace, located along the Black Sea coast. It gave him the opportunity to enjoy all his secret excesses away from the day to day rigmarole of political office of which he had now become increasingly bored.

He'd remembered an old friend of his from the FSB warning him that "boredom was a luxury you should cherish Platov," which he never understood. Now, whenever things just ticked by in monotonous fashion, he felt nervous inside, as if he wasn't doing enough. He could hear the ghosts of his political predecessors judging him in the silences on his increasing recreational breaks away from Moscow. He ignored the deathly whispers of the weak, simpleton leaders such as Krushchev and Yeltsin who he felt had embarassed Russia's noble history.

The only ones he truly respected and listened to were the greats of history such as Godunov, Peter, Ivan, Lenin and Stalin.

He could hear them talking to him at night, holding conferences inside his head.

"In a quiet lagoon, Devils dwell."

Swimming each morning was when he got most of "Russia's thinking done", the President still felt strong physically, though he could feel the cold in his bones more pronounced than when he was young, daily reminders that time was not his ally. This insidious slow creep of mortality disturbed him greatly, though he felt he'd aged far better than most world leaders. When President Obama went grey after just one term of office, he just assumed he was responsible for stealing the young president's youth. Those famous red lines had clearly taken their toll. But considering he, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin had all the money in the world, it still bothered him that it became more and more expensive to remain looking young. No wonder those lokhs in poverty aged so quickly, he thought to himself and felt a sense of pride that he'd acquired this life of abundant riches and great power.

Perhaps boredom was a luxury acquired only after you'd gained tremendous power and had eventually become immune to chaos, he pondered to himself as he emerged from the lake and dried himself off with a towel.

"There's no happiness in life. Only a mirage of it on the horizon." - Leo Tolstoy

He'd often felt as if he belonged in another time, the 17th century perhaps when Russia was truly a great power and had easily brought all of its enemies to heel. Watching the decadent West currently eat itself gave him some satifsfaction, but it also disappointed him to have no substantial adversaries to play geo-political chess with. He felt similarly about Presidents Bush Jr and Obama when they held office. He'd never had the chance to properly sharpen his teeth with Trump as there was too much noise around them.  Often 'war gaming' in his mind various scenarios that might have played out between them with Russia always the victor,  he was greatly amused after seeing "the talker" had been voted out in such a laughable and unceremonious way by the voters.  That was the price you paid for democracy he supposed. Biden, however, was the saddest and most pathetic of all his political opponents. To think he was technically responsible for the world's number one super power along with China and his own Russia seemed incomprehensible to him. He'd always thought Americans were stupid, but this was a farce. However, it did present opportunities for him to exploit.

And exploit them he would.

For perhaps, the president thought to himself, the test of a true leader is to write the new pages of history while everyone else is paralysed by their own. It certainly appeared to him from the outside that countries that once ruled the world were now turning in on themselves in and creating their own civil turmoil. He couldn't afford for that to happen in his beloved Russia which is why he consistently maintained such a firm grip on his country and its destiny moving forward.

He hated to admit it to himself, but he wasn't without his own decadence. As much as he liked to present an image of himself as Orthodox, he knew he was inherently more pagan by nature and had succumbed to vice as much as those he derided in the unholy West. At least he kept it privately to himself. Although he felt he was exempt from judgement on the grounds of his historical importance, he had learnt privately that he simply couldn't commit to a wholly virtous life and it bothered him strangely, like a speck of dust on a perfectly clean mirror. Every time he'd tried to get through a week without succumbing to temptation, he found himself too weak to maintain it. It was only when he had something big to play for politically, militarily, that he felt pure and undistracted by those grubby human behaviours that sullied his personal sense of greatness.

Having spied on so many others he'd once naively respected, he knew more than most how hypocritical so many leaders and supposed great men and women were behind closed doors. Although this didn't exempt him from his failings, he did feel that no-one else around him had sufficient moral high ground to sermonise to him about his hypocrisies.

Another benefit of being the most powerful leader on earth was that he'd learnt to compartmentalise Vladimir Vladimirovich, the man made of flesh and blood, from Putin the institution he had become as a global titan of political force. They were two separate things entirely and this was how he'd come to rationalise his immoral behaviours at these times of degenerate idleness.

Although cracks were increasingly revealing themselves in his perfect image of himself and as a compensation for diminishing powers, especially in youthful carnal endeavours he'd once so enjoyed, he became more and more determined and resolute not to become complacent in all matters Russia.

Now was the time to cement his legacy once and for all and not sleep on it.

For Vladimir, dreaming was fine, but for the President, too much dreaming meant too much avoiding reality.

This was a time to stay awake at all costs.

"In Moscow you sit in a huge room at a restaurant; you know no one and no one knows you, and at the same time you don't feel a stranger." - Chekhov

As he returned to Moscow in his Aurus Senat limousine, the President could feel his vacation anxieties greatly reduce. He took comfort in seeing the normal people on the street going about their daily business, none of them remotely close or even capable of assuming one ounce of his power or importance.  

He was back now in the engine room of the country where he would drive forward the destiny of an entire people.

Him.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin