Europe
        

Economy

Russia's Putin burns rubber with bikers

Updated: 2011-08-31 13:23

(China Daily)

Twitter Facebook Myspace Yahoo! Linkedin Mixx

 Russia's Putin burns rubber with bikers

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (left) rides with motorcycle enthusiasts during his visit to a bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk on Monday. Putin kicked off an election campaign on Monday revving up his three-wheeled Harley Davidson at the head of a bikers motorcade. Alexsey Druginyn / Reuters

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday described leather-clad bikers as brothers and boasted of the "indivisible Russian nation" after roaring into a biking rally on a Harley Davidson.

The black-clad Putin led a column of bikers, their lights blazing into the night sky, who drove into a mass biking rally held on a former Soviet warship in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiisk.

Putin, an avowed fan of bikes, appeared to be riding the same massive three-wheeled Lehman trike conversion motorbike he rode to a similar meeting of the bikers in Ukraine last year.

Cheered by the biking faithful, Putin immediately took to the stage upon arrival and delivered a demagogic speech which managed to combine patriotism, historical memory and the motorcycle, state television pictures showed.

"I want to tell you, brothers, it's really great that you have not forgotten the heroism of the past," he told the crowd.

Recalling that Novorossiisk had been freed from Nazi occupation 68 years ago, he added: "These pages of history are in a striking way linked with the motorcycle because it was easiest to take children away from firing by motorbike.

"This historical memory is the cement which makes people of different peoples, ethnic groups and religions into one indivisible Russian nation, and creates a great Russia," he said.

He said the defenders of Novorossiisk had a great slogan which was "relevant today for bikers and for Russia ... Only movement forwards".

The bike provides an ideal vehicle for Putin's trademark hardman antics which are becoming ever more familiar in Russia as he seeks to convince Russians he remains their strongman ahead of elections.

Russia is to hold presidential elections in March with many commentators expecting that Putin will seek to return to the Kremlin.

The massive rally was organized by a Russian biking group by the name of "The Night Wolves" and Putin now appears to have become firm friends with their leader Alexander Zaldostanov, who goes by the name of "the surgeon".

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 08/31/2011 page10)

E-paper

City's dynamic teutons

German cluster gives a fillip, competitive edge to local economy in Taicang

Short and sweet
Game for growth
Character reference

European Edition

Specials

Hunting grounds

Opinion divided as China debates opening door to international players

Flying the TCM flag

A small German town is home to Europe's flagship clinic for traditional Chinese medicine

Animal attraction

World's youngest chief fur designer set to launch own label and tap into huge China market.

Sowing the seeds of doubt
Lifting the veil
Exclusive attraction