From what I can see from the Russian press, for Putin the biggest advantage of being President is that he gets to indulge his love of outdoor stuff. The only time he looks happy in pictures is when he’s surrounded by animals. His own dog gets to follow him around most places. I guess he knows they’re not plotting against him.
Brezhnev before he went gaga was apparently much the same. There’s supposed to be a conversation between him and his new economics minister along the lines of:
B: “Do you know anything about hunting?”
M: “No.”
B: “Well, I don’t know anything about economics. So, tell you what, you do the economics and I’ll do the hunting.”
