Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday revealed that he dreamed of becoming a pilot in his childhood and later an intelligence officer.
During an annual televised Direct Line question-and-answer session with Russian citizens, the 71-year-old president said that apart from his “main dream” of becoming an intelligence officer, he wanted to become a pilot, state-owned TASS news agency quoted him as saying.
“I talked about it. Each person at different stages of their life has a different attitude to the values that surround them. I wanted to be a pilot. But the main [dream], already in high school, I wanted to be an intelligence officer, and, as you know, I became one,” Putin said.
Putin has held power for nearly 24 years and announced last week he is running for reelection. Before becoming the president, he worked as an officer of the KGB intelligence agency.
The traditional question-and-answer session was combined this year with Putin’s year-end press conference with Russian and international journalists.
The meeting lasted four hours and three minutes. Putin responded to more than 80 appeals and questions from citizens and journalists, the report said.
Replying to a video question about whether he had doppelgangers from his “virtual replica”- a student from St. Petersburg- the head of state said that he was the only one who could speak in his voice.
“I can see that you may look very much like me, and you are speaking in my voice. However, I decided that only one person should look like me and speak in my voice. And that person will be myself. This is what one of our public figures said jokingly a while ago,” Putin said.
Adding that it was the first time he had seen someone who looked so much like himself, he said, “This is my first doppelganger, by the way.”
In 2020, the event lasted 4 hours and 30 minutes. The record for the duration of a direct line (as a separate format) was set in 2013 at 4 hours and 47 minutes, while the record for an annual press conference is 4 hours and 40 minutes (2008), according to the report.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI)