MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti) – President Vladimir Putin left some Russian schoolchildren with an unusual souvenir when he visited them on Monday - his artistic recreation of a cat's backside.
Putin was visiting Middle School No. 7 in the Siberian Kurgan Region to congratulate its pupils on the start of the new school year, as well as to see the results of repairs to the school using federal funds he had ordered last February.
Putin took an interest in an interactive whiteboard in the school’s IT department, and after learning it could be written on simply using a finger, he sketched an image that was not immediately recognizeable to everyone. “This is for you to remember,” he told the students.
When one asked what the doodle was, Putin answered with a smile, “It’s a cat - from the back.”
Putin is not the only presidential figure to use the feline form as an artistic subject.
Former US President George W. Bush has taken up painting following his retirement from the White House in 2009. Though Bush has allegedly painted over 50 dog portraits, one of his newest works, revealed last week, pictured a cat lounging over the edge of what appears to be a refrigerator.
