When the deputy head of the presidential administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, said during a recent Valdai Discussion Club meeting in Sochi that “Putin is Russia and Russia is Putin,” he was expressing a profound Russian reality. In no other country has the ruler’s persona – from Catherine the Great and Ivan the Terrible to Lenin and Stalin – made such a deep mark on national history.
副总理沃洛金（Vyacheslav Volodin）在最近的索契（Sochi）瓦尔代辩论俱乐部（Valdai Discussion Club）会议上说“普京就是俄罗斯，俄罗斯就是普京。”他说出了一个意义深远的俄罗斯现实。没有哪个国家，统治者的个人形象可以对国家历史产生如此深的印记&mdash;&mdash;从凯瑟琳大帝和伊凡雷帝到列宁和斯大林。