At 60, Putin still starts his day Scots way ... with bowl of porridge

The Kremlin had insisted that president Vladimir Putin did not care for parties and that he was to spend his 60th birthday yesterday quietly celebrating with close friends and family in his home city, St Petersburg.

However, the president’s supporters didn’t appear to have received the memo, and so the day saw an unprecedented exhibition of Putin-idolatry reminiscent of some of the world’s oddest cults of personality.

Much of it, like it the fawning, up-close-and-personal profile broadcast on Kremlin-friendly television channel NTV, looked like propaganda. Some of the praise was so extreme as to appear almost like a subtle form of satire on Putin’s heroic representations in state media. And some Putin opponents used the occasion to poke fun.

The pro-government Mestniye youth movement held a sports contest in a central Moscow square under the slogan “Do Your Best for Putin”. Organisers said the slogan symbolised their gratitude for Mr Putin’s efforts to boost the popularity of sports by personally indulging in a healthy lifestyle. The black-belt judoka has over the years been shown horse riding, swimming, scuba-diving, playing ice hockey, and hunting.

NTV’s documentary purported to describe the details of Mr Putin’s working life. The programme showed his daily routine, which includes swimming and weight-lifting exercises, a breakfast of porridge, the drive to work, and the late-night working sessions at the office. The programme was laden with insights from Mr Putin on the state of the opposition (poor) and the two-year jail sentence for Pussy Riot (fair).

An art exhibition titled “Putin: The Most Kind-Hearted Man in the World” also opened in Moscow yesterday. The show featured around a dozen paintings by artist Alexei Sergiyenko closely modelled on photos of some of the president’s most memorable moments – riding a horse bare-chested, weeping at a celebration rally after his 2012 election victory, and leading cranes in flight on a motorised hang-glider.

Many of the paintings, apparently created in earnest, depict Mr Putin’s well-publicised fondness for animals and show him stroking a tiger cub, and bottle-feeding a calf.

Ten mountaineers scaled a 13,125-foot ridge in the southern republic of North Ossetia-Alania to erect a 13ft by-20ft portrait of the leader.

“We have stuck Putin’s portrait on a rock wall we see as unbreakable and eternal as Putin,” Kazbek Khamitsayev, who led the difficult climb up the icy peak, said. “This is our present to Putin … From the bottom of our hearts.”

Even though Mr Putin is at an age at which he can collect his pension, many of the tributes played to Mr Putin’s image as a sex symbol – one in five Russian women say they would be happy to marry him, according to a poll released on Friday.

A film released by the pro-Kremlin Young Guard included young women in tight-fitting costumes anxiously checking their cell phones and staring longingly at portraits of Putin.

However, there was at least a small backlash against the adoration – a small group of people bearing mocking gifts assembled outside the presidential offices.

A Facebook page titled “Time For Grandfather to Retire,” created ahead of the quickly organised protest in Moscow, said presents for Putin’s retirement could include anything, from money to Viagra pills.

During the Moscow demonstration, many of the present-givers were bundled away by riot police.