6 episodes
About a Boy: The Story of Vladimir Putin Audacy
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- History
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4.8 • 60 Ratings
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The West's obsession with Vladimir Putin's KGB past often misses the biographical detail that can be captured by a single word: dvor. The word means courtyard in Russian, but to a Russian speaker, it is evocative of a whole universe. It was the space where Putin, like so many Soviet kids of his generation, grew up and learned an unforgiving, often brutal social code. Puck journalist Julia Ioffe introduces Westerners to that universe and explains why it’s critical to understanding the Russian president and what he might do next in the war against Ukraine.
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Chapter 1: The Ghosts
The Soviet Union suffers unthinkable horrors during World War II. Leningrad, the city into which Vladimir Putin is born, loses more than a million of its citizens to starvation, and Vladimir Putin’s parents barely make it out alive.
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Chapter 2: The Rat
Soviet baby boomers are born into a country ravaged by war. Given that parents are largely absent — either dead, traumatized, or working to make ends meet – children spend most of their time in the dvor, the urban courtyard. The dvor is Vladimir Putin’s world.
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Chapter 3: The Punk
Putin grows up as a small, scrawny kid in a poor neighborhood with few ways up. Enter judo and the KGB.
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Chapter 4: The Big Brother
Organized crime and violence reign supreme in post-Soviet Russia. In this world, the rules of the dvor prove invaluable — for the men fighting over the jewels of the Soviet industrial empire, and for Vladimir Putin.
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Chapter 5: All the World’s a Dvor
To predict what Vladimir Putin might do next in Ukraine, it’s helpful to remember his first and foremost education — in the dvor.
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About a Boy: The Story of Vladimir Putin
In the West, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is always seen as one of two things: KGB spy or judo master. But to anyone who’s ever lived in the Soviet Union, Putin is something else entirely: a street kid. Join journalist Julia Ioffe as she explores how Putin’s childhood taught him lessons that shape his thinking and actions to this day.
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Customer Reviews
More Julia Ioffe, please!!
10/10. This was a superb listen!
I’ve recently subscribed to Puck after discovering a few long-form interviews with Julia Ioffe. I am really impressed by her knowledge and ability to articulate, break-down, and analyse, complex, nuanced topics. I only wish I had found this podcast sooner! I also wish I could find more long-form interviews and/or podcasts with Julia.
I’ve been following the war in Ukraine closely, but this has provided me with another lens in which I can analyse the war in Ukraine and Putin’s actions through. For this, I’m incredibly grateful.
I’ve just shared this podcast with a few of my friends, and would absolutely recommend it to anyone remotely interested in topics including Russia/USSR, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, war, history, geopolitics, and more.
- JS (Australia)
Disappointing.
I was really looking forward to learning more about the polarising figure that runs the worlds biggest country. His unsuspecting rise from poverty to one of the worlds most powerful men.
It started out well in the first episode, setting the stage. Explaining the environment his parents lived in and what Vladimir was born into.
But progressively it becomes a propaganda piece that paints him as a thug and a cartoon villain.
The subject matter is rich and the start so promising. It’s unfortunate that the it’s presented from such a western point of view.
I would not be surprised however, as the intelligentsia always portray populist leaders in the same light.
It would not do the so called elites any good for the population to believe they could be lead by one of their own.
Just look at what the USA “elites” have done to Trump. The same country the presenter is from.
Putin is a product of his environment, one of the few things this series gets right. To understand him and the Russians, you have to place yourself in their shoes. Understand their culture, their historic difficulties. Different cultures think differently and therefore act different.
The last episode is just full of inaccuracies, bad analysis, and downright lies.
It’s Jan 2024. We will see in a few years how this all plays out. But I’m fairly confident that it won’t be with Putin taking the whole of Ukraine and then invading Europe. That makes not sense. Especially from a man that wanted to join Europe and NATO, and was rebuffed.
It’s a pity. I expected more.
Brilliant
Insightful and with excellent historical analysis by one of the best American journalists on Russia and its invasion of Ukraine