Due to work I was in Moscow last 25 days. My flight was from Helsinki and there all the Finnish peoples in the airport are very friendly or at least professional. Well, I bought the ticket in Aeroflot (Russian Airways) and there they said I can carry only 20 Kg but my lugged happens to be 30 Kg that means I have to go first to the Aeroflot office to pay for extra 10 Kg. OK, no problem, I went there and just one lady in front of me standing so it will be pretty quick!! Alas, the lady looks completely lost and talking to the counter lady in Russian and they keep talking for an hour!! I was thinking; no wonder if I miss my flight if this conversation continues, so as usual with a very polite word I asked the Aeroflot counter lady, whether it will take longer!! She replied “YOU HAVE TO WAIT”! Ok that’s I am doing for last one hour and without a sentence I started to WAIT again. Well, at some point SHE is done with another SHE and for me she charge the amount from my credit card once and then she bite her tongue and said ahhh I made a mistake. Give me your card again…obviously I signed the last slip and I guess I have the right to say “WHY”…anyway, she got offended and said weather I want my lugged in the carrier or not. Ok, give her the card again and she took around 20 min and I have to sign the slip. I have left with 35 minutes to run for my flight and middle way have to cross the security check and Immigration. I was thinking seriously if I miss the flight can I skip this Russian business trip!! WOWO…but, then comes practical thinking and discard the precious thought! After crossing the security while approach the Immigration officer in the Helsinki airport, he was smiling at me and while returning back my passport said politely “have a nice trip”. So, it’s good start! Flight is around 1 hour and 50 minute… and airhostess started to serve the dinner, well literally they were throwing the food. No complain YET! After arrived in Moscow airport I feel some sad air passing by, I don’t know why but I felt in that way. No one smiles; no one talks but gave an intent look at you, however if you notice! Anyway approached to the immigration, by the way I am holding a 7-8 years old Bangladeshi hand written passport and there is scratch on the inner side of my cover …GOD, as soon as the immigration office took the passport with full force of his body he try to tear the cover and I would say he succeed very well. Then he look at me like a criminal and called the other immigration officer and I hear the military boots started to run. One guy came and took the passport in somewhere else and come back after 10 minutes and said everything is OK! Still that guy is not convinced and he started to curse me in his own mother tongue (this part is my guess)!! Well at the end he stamped my passport and give back to me. Good for me, in my mind I was relived and thinking anything could happen and second thought is what I will do with this almost broken passport? Went to the baggage claim section and see my lugged, wow, at last… but the chain is broken so as usual went to the baggage damage section and the old lady came to me with an ironic face and said the baggage must have broken before…without a word I agree with her and left the place. I asked for a pickup service and the driver is waiting for me with my name in his hand, I approached him with a smile and his face becomes like just swallowed two GIANT JELLY FISH and started to walk. Never mind I follow him and reached my apartment. I started to think what is the problem? Is this the peoples attitude problem or this comes from the system! Don’t get me wrong in general Russian peoples are good but it takes time to be their friend. Kind of old soviet mentality, don’t trust anybody?! Well, I am bit outside of what I am intending to tell. It’s a story of man and a dream! A boy was born in 7th October 1952 at a communal apartment in Leningrad (now, St. Pietersburg) named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He was a very good student as well as good athlete according to the academic record. He used to watch a lot of Stalin style one man hero Russian movies and determined to make difference even when he was at his 11 years. So, he was preparing himself for serving his mother Russia to make it an even stronger place. To follow his dream he decided to join in Russian secret service i.e. the then KGB. After graduation, Putin went in KGB office for a service and told them about his wish to become a spy. In reply KGB told him “We are watching, we know who to recruit and when. Go back to school and study law”. He came back with his broken heart but didn’t slip what he was dreaming his whole life. He studied hard and successfully defends his PhD thesis on, ”The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations”. The topic was a whole new chapter of innovative idea of the contemporary Russian thinking. He shoots straight to the authority for the requirement of a planned energy framework. In the same year of 1975 his dream become true and joined in KGB with a job of monitoring general foreigners and embassy peoples in Leningrad. He always had a bigger picture of the whole scenario and knew what he is after. Putin, made friends in every level inside and outside of KGB, business leaders, University Professors and also the crime circle of the region. Then he posted as a KGB chief in East Germany to recruit Spy and maintaining Russian interest in this strategically important area and he did that from 1985 to 1990 till the Berlin wall is demolished. He was angry and wanted the immediate military action but Kremlin was silent. This makes him to believe that, there is no one left in Kremlin after Stalin who can protect Russia. He should start to work on that. Soviet regime falls apart and there is no one left who can take care of the public assets. Kremlin divides the business to the nearest one as well as elite members of the state named oligarchs. This makes millionaires to billionaires over night and oligarchs become so powerful that they started to decide literally what the government will do and who will get what position. New era of community. Forty years old Putin came back to St. Petersburg and resign from KGB. His former professor in the university Anatoly Sobchak was the city mayor that time and appointed him as a head of foreign relation and investments. Putin did a great work; he attracted plenty of foreign companies in a very short period to boost the state’s economic growth. Then comes the shock when everything looks all right, in 1996 Anatoly loose the mayor election to his opposition party leader. Even though the new leader request Putin to keep his position in the city mayor office but Putin cannot betray his boss and this is flown in his blood, he cannot help it. There is nothing left for him in St. Petersburg, he have to leave for Kremlin in Moscow, where his dream is hidden. From 1996 to august 1999, Putin rises very fast in Boris yeltsin’s presidential period, from a non important role to the chief of FSB (an important spin off part of former KGB). He still proves that never forgets and let down the boss interest. This attitude makes him closer and closer to Boris and got the responsibility also for dissolving the government anti-corruption matters. This new charge makes him stronger than ever and every high official have to bow up to certain extent to him. Also, it makes him closer to oligarchs and a free access to the Russian ground + underground! Everyone knows that Boris health is going bad day by day and every two years he was changing prime minister to find his successor. At last he seems to find a person of his dream who will never come after his boss for mass murder and corruption, as well as got the vote of Oligarchs. They thought, Putin is nobody and a week person and will only follow their command. Who knows the heart of this person, only himself probably? Putin becomes the prime minister of Russia in 1999 and following year in 2000 becomes the Russian president. People heard the name first time “Vladimir Putin” and reply back with a question “Who is he?” So, now he has to introduce himself to the mass people. After sit in the power house he visited the same night.. front end Russian troopers fighting in Chechnya. He presented them a small knife, a symbol of military recognition. Historically Afgans and Chechens are the most dangerous people in earth and Russia has to fight both of them! Chechens were waiting and made a series bomb attack in Moscow which brings thousand dead people with a message that Russian army have to stop killing in their territory and an independent democratic country. Russians are angry and don’t know what to say. Putin comes up and said, “We will find them one by one and kill them wherever we found them, maybe in the kitchen, maybe in the shit hole. No matter what”. In that situation all the Russians were thinking like that and Putin just echoed their words. First time people came to believe that he is same person like them and they can trust him. Now that Putin get people’s choice award, he have to show some real improvement in the economy and clear up all the pension bills in his table. He has to impose a practical tax that is logical in Russia as a source of income for the state. That means he have to face even bigger player now i.e. oligarchs. He called all of them and make them understood with his steely eye from now on they do only business but no politics. While doing his PhD thesis, he came to a conclusion that the future will be in the hand of country who rules the energy sector and Russia is one of the biggest exporters of oil and gas. He started to build the pipelines from Vladivostok to China, Japan and Korea in the east side and under the Baltic sea to Germany and all those European countries and literally put them in Russia’s pocket. State own company becomes the biggest reservoir of oil and gas. This becomes even more profitable for Russia when USA attack Iraq and the consequence was rocket high energy prices and Moscow becomes the most expensive place in earth. Though Putin don’t agree that because of Iraq war energy price increased, he boldly said that Russian policy makers and negotiator’s work day and night to make this happen?! Russia has an even better and stronger military force then ever, even they decrease the number of force by one third. Putin build a smart army with a reduced cost but more efficient. At the Christmas Eve of 2011 in Russia, some thousands of people were protesting for Putin’s resignation wearing a white ribbon after he claimed that he fixed the parliamentary election. In response to that Putin said in TV media “I watched it in TV. They were wearing something on their coats. Don’t be offended but this is true.. I thought this is an anti-AIDS campaign. I thought they had pinned on condoms. But why had they unwrapped them!” [Source: BBC news] This is an honest response of immediate reaction!? My question is also “Why they unwrapped them?”. In an action film, a hero can swim the ice-cold lake in Siberia/Alaska, know how to defend mortal combat with Judo/kungfu, Can fly with a supersonic fighter plane, a diligent person when approach to be but in the role of super hero you have to become peoples person also. In this contemporary world, only one man practically did all those heroic actions in his life. I come to a conclusion that, you might get offended by the Russian people’s attitude, you might not like Russian cold food but you cannot deny a person’s intellectuality and contribution towards his motherland. No wonder Vladimir Putin is the super hero. Mohammad Nur-A-Alam Espoo, Finland.