TUVA, Russia – Russia’s president Vladimir Putin revealed on Monday that the young members of his family speak fluent Mandarin. In a video of his meeting with the pupils of a secondary school in Kyzyl, Tuva, about 4,500km east from Moscow, Putin relays that Russia has a growing interest in the Chinese language due to their present connections with China.
Putin further added that China had similar interests in the Russian language. He emphasised to the school children that while new languages are being learnt, the importance of English in uniting cultures and combining knowledge should not be overlooked.
A developing partnership between China and Russia has been making Mandarin a popular language in Putin’s country; a trend he says is due to ‘increasing contacts’ in the fields of economics, culture and politics.
China-Russia Ties
In May of this year, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement aiming to deepen the ties between their two nations at a summit in Beijing, Al Jazeera reports. During the event, the Chinese president described their union as a force of stabilisation in a world of ‘rising hegemony.’
In 2023, trade between the two nations hit a record high of $240 billion, with China being Russia’s current number one partner in trade. China and Russia’s 2022 meeting during the Beijing Winter Olympics resulted in a joint statement emphasising a ‘no limits partnership.’ Meanwhile, 2021 marked 20 years of the signage of a China-Russia treaty focusing on ‘Friendly Cooperation’ and ‘Good-Neighbourliness.’
Putin’s Family Life
Putin is well known to keep his family matters private, with details of happenings in his personal life being revealed only years after, making this detail of Mandarin being spoken in his home a light into his covert familial occurrences.
According to Russian media reports, Putin has two daughters with his ex-wife, and they speak Russian, English, French and German. While Putin rarely speaks of his family, Russian media reported Putin as having at least three grandchildren, too.
Watch the video here:
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