Putin to be cast in bronze for Schwarzenegger
Agence France-Presse | 10/28/2009 8:09 AM
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MOSCOW – A bust of Russia's muscle-flexing strongman Vladimir Putin is being created as a gift for ex-Hollywood bodybuilder and California's current governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, its sculptor said Tuesday.
The bust is currently being made in Putin's home city of Saint Petersburg on an order of Russia's Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation and will be delivered to the movie star turned politician in March.
"Putin is such a complex personality. He's left no one indifferent," Alexander Chernoshchyokov, a Saint Petersburg-based sculptor who has been working on the Putin bust since June, told AFP.
In 1991 the Russian artist made a sculpture of Schwarzenegger and Vladimir Dubinin, the president of the bodybuilding federation, personally delivered the gift.
The two Russian men soon learned the Hollywood action hero collected sculptures, Dubinin said.
His collection however lacked figures of Communist-era leaders, so a few years later Chernoshchyokov made the sculptures of Stalin and Lenin.
"Then we brought him the busts of Gorbachev and Yeltsin," said Dubinin, referring to the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late Russian president Boris Yeltsin.
A sculpture of Putin, a former president and current prime minister, was the next logical step, he added.
Capturing Putin's features proved difficult however. "He's changing every day. His features even change during the day," said Dubinin.
The sculptor said he took up the work even though he did not agree with everything Putin does. "A true member of the intelligentsia is always in opposition to power," said Chernoshchyokov.
He said he had recently sent a message to Putin asking him to come to Saint Petersburg and sign the bust for Schwarzenegger. But he has not received a reply so far.
The bust has already been made in plasticine and would be cast in bronze soon, said the artist, adding he wanted to make a second bust for the premier himself.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was not aware of the bust but said Putin would not approve because he has always been against attempts to turn his popularity into a personality cult.
"Nothing has changed," Peskov said.
A passionate judo player, Putin is known for his own muscle-bound physique and in recent years has allowed himself to be photographed showing off his naked torso during holiday expeditions in the Russian wilderness.
During Putin's 2000-2008 presidency, many entrepreneurial Russians sought to cash in on the public's affection for Putin, depicting him on T-shirts, badges, vodka bottles and even rugs.
A full-size plaster sculpture of the former president was erected in Pskov in northwest Russia in 2004 but survived only 24 hours before being taken down and hauled away by police.
Following the ascension to power of Putin's protege Dmitry Medvedev, entrepreneurs have now switched to the Medvedev paraphernalia.
Dubinin, too, said he started thinking about a sculpture of the current Kremlin chief.
"I am already preparing" for Medvedev's bust, said Dubinin, noting he started collecting his pictures.
"But that will be when he ceases to be the president," Dubinin added.
That means Schwarzenegger's collection may get the Medvedev sculpture in less than three years.
Putin, who famously declared earlier this year that he and Medvedev were "of the same blood", hinted earlier this year he might be back in the Kremlin in 2012.
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