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Russian PM Attends Service At Church Of His Baptism, Recalls Childhood Years
Interfax - 1.7.12 - JRL 2012-5

Russian Prime Minister has attended an Orthodox Christian Christmas Eve service at the church in his native St Petersburg where he was baptized shortly after birth, Interfax news agency reported on 6 January quoting Putin.

"This cathedral is special to me. I was baptized here about a month-and-a-half after I was born," he was quoted as telling the press after the service at St Petersburg's Transfiguration Cathedral.

"Mum told me that she and her neighbour brought me here for christening; the father was a member of the Communist Party, a steadfast, strict person. They did it secretly from him; at any rate, it was seen as having been done secretly," he said.

Putin said that the priest suggested that he be named Mikhail, but his mother said that she had already registered him as Vladimir.

Putin also said that immediately after the war his parents lived across the street from the cathedral. Later, his father got a room in Baskov Pereulok, which was five minutes' walk from the cathedral, he said.

He also said that in his childhood he and his friends often "hung around" the cathedral, attracted by its beauty and monumentality.

Keywords: Russia, Government, Politics - Russia, Religion - Russia News - Russia

 

Russian Prime Minister has attended an Orthodox Christian Christmas Eve service at the church in his native St Petersburg where he was baptized shortly after birth, Interfax news agency reported on 6 January quoting Putin.

"This cathedral is special to me. I was baptized here about a month-and-a-half after I was born," he was quoted as telling the press after the service at St Petersburg's Transfiguration Cathedral.

"Mum told me that she and her neighbour brought me here for christening; the father was a member of the Communist Party, a steadfast, strict person. They did it secretly from him; at any rate, it was seen as having been done secretly," he said.

Putin said that the priest suggested that he be named Mikhail, but his mother said that she had already registered him as Vladimir.

Putin also said that immediately after the war his parents lived across the street from the cathedral. Later, his father got a room in Baskov Pereulok, which was five minutes' walk from the cathedral, he said.

He also said that in his childhood he and his friends often "hung around" the cathedral, attracted by its beauty and monumentality.