Putin ‘hates’ heavy steel music as mouthpiece reveals despot’s favourites
Despite his macho image, Vladimir Putin won’t be rocking out to electric guitar riffs anytime soon, as his press secretary revealed the Russian president has no taste for heavy metal
Mr. Vladimir Putin won’t “let his body hit the floor” to the powerful tunes of an electric guitar riff any time soon. As it turns out, the Russian president is not too fond of a certain genre of music that may surprise you.
Don’t let the shirtless horse-riding, ice-hockey fake scoring, polar bear handling, testosterone-fuelled all-might powerful manly man fool you. Putin is a softie when it comes to music, an important insider in the Russian government has just publicly disclosed.
During a meeting of the Kremlin Council on Interethnic Relations on November 5, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, revealed Putin’s musical taste.
Margarita Lyange, head of the interregional public organisation presented the Russian head of state with a record of the best songs in the languages of Russia’s peoples. One of the records included a composition by the Kalmyk ethno-electropunk band HAGRIN, titled “Polyn”.
Russia is home to over 100 languages spoken across its vast territory, so while Russian is the official state language and used nationwide, dozens of minority languages are spoken by various ethnic groups, particularly in the country’s republics and autonomous regions.
For example, Tatar is widely spoken in Tatarstan, Bashkir in Bashkortostan, Chechen in Chechnya, and Sakha (Yakut) in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). Other notable languages include Chuvash, Mari, Udmurt, and Komi in the Volga region, as well as indigenous languages like Buryat near Lake Baikal and various Caucasian languages such as Avar, Ingush, and Lezgian in the North Caucasus.
Moreover, Kalmyk is one of the minority languages spoken in Russia, primarily in the Republic of Kalmykia, located in the southern part of the country near the Caspian Sea. Kalmyk is a member of the Mongolic language family and is the only Mongolic language spoken in Europe.
In the Kalmyk language, “polyn” is a common and polite expression used to show gratitude, similar to “spasibo” in Russian or “thank you” in English.
And while this exchange of culture was much appreciated by Putin, his press secretary made sure to clarify the music that would and wouldn’t be playing anytime soon at the Kremlin.
“The president, of course, likes good ethnic music,” Peskov told Russian media TASS, answering a question about whether the president likes ethnic music.
As Putin himself has previously said, he finds any music enjoyable if it is talented, but, for example, he doesn’t appreciate heavy metal – it’s “too heavy”.
By the president’s own admission, he listens to music every day, preferring the classics, including Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert, TASS reported.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters .
