The Soviet Union suffers unthinkable horrors during World War II. Leningrad, the city into which Vladimir Putin is born, loses more than a million of its citizens to starvation, and Vladimir Putin’s parents barely make it out alive.
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Chapter 5: All the World’s a Dvor
To predict what Vladimir Putin might do next in Ukraine, it’s helpful to remember his first and foremost education — in the dvor.
Chapter 4: The Big Brother
Organized crime and violence reign supreme in post-Soviet Russia. In this world, the rules of the dvor prove invaluable — for the men fighting over the jewels of the Soviet industrial empire, and for Vladimir Putin.
Chapter 3: The Punk
Putin grows up as a small, scrawny kid in a poor neighborhood with few ways up. Enter judo and the KGB.