"When Vladimir Putin took over as acting president of Russia on the last day of the 20th Century, the former spy was an enigma to many. In History looks at how the surprise leader survived a tough childhood to rise to power in the Kremlin.
The new leader of the world's largest country had risen to the top while leaving few traces. It was clear the 47-year-old was a man who liked to look and talk tough – a judo black belt who would make pronouncements such as calling lawbreakers 'rats who should be squashed.' But what was he really like?
Putin was born in 1952, seven years after the end of World War Two, following the siege of Leningrad that killed his elder brother and which his parents barely survived. He was brought up in a crowded communal flat with shared kitchen and bathroom, teeming with rats and cockroaches. He recalled in his autobiography how as a boy he had to fight rats on his staircase. He wrote: 'Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove it into a corner. Suddenly it lashed out and threw itself at me. It jumped down the landing and down the stairs.'
She said that the family had strong values of duty, patriotism and loyalty. 'His parents loved him very much. He was the centre of their world, the son they'd longed for. But their character was very restrained by nature – they didn't really show their emotions. The father was outwardly very cold, and his mother, too. They wouldn't even consider kissing their son in public – that would never have occurred to them.'
In 1991, Putin became deputy to the new mayor of Leningrad, Anatoly Sobchak. When Sobchak was voted out, the Kremlin headhunted Putin. As the Yeltsin administration staggered towards its end, Putin rose stealthily until, in 1999, he was made prime minister. The man from nowhere was suddenly everywhere all at once.
For Putin's old friend Maria Osorina in 2003, his leadership was a breath of fresh air: 'I was born in 1950, and since that time we've never had a leader who is pleasant to look at. I didn't like any of them. Putin is the first person to rule Russia since the Revolution whom I really like. He's the first normal person, the first one we're not ashamed of.'"