Papa Vlad

Last night, Vlad the Impaler decided to spend three hours on television in Russia, in his usual festive holiday fashion, taking phone calls from his people. 

Because the peasants are his people.  And he loves his people.  PULL!*  

Erm...anyway.  Here be the highlights:

{...}Fielding questions about everything from Nato to unemployment benefits to Christmas trees, he made few new policy pronouncements but projected the impression that a strong man was at the helm and knew what to do.

Russia’s central bank would continue to defend the rouble from “sharp swings” in the exchange rate, he said. He reiterated the line that other politicians have taken that the state might take stakes in Russia’s large companies to prevent them from bankruptcy.

For people who had lost their jobs and had to pay off mortgages, Mr Putin announced the federal mortgage agency would take over loans from commercial banks and not demand early repayment. He promised large-scale help for the mounting number of unemployed.

Among the 1.3m calls, no concern was too minuscule to be dealt with. The people of the small Siberian town of Pokrovska wanted a sports centre built. “We will absolutely try to react” he told the audience.

A caller from the eastern province of Bashkyria complained that his sister had been deprived of her invalidity benefits. “It must have been a mistake. We’ll see what we can do,” Mr Putin assured him.

The majority of callers were worried about the economy, rising inflation and unemployment. Russians were either uninterested in speculation that Mr Putin planned to return prematurely to the presidency, or the questions were filtered out.{...}

But wait...it gets better. 

{...}Mr Putin was asked to offer his opinion on what kind of Christmas tree should someone buy (“artificial Christmas trees can also be entertaining”), and a young girl named Dasha called from Buryatia to ask for a new dress for the new year. “New years is a time to think not only of what you want but what your grandmother wants as well,” said Mr Putin, before inviting the girl’s family to Moscow.{...}

Ah, the paternalistic Vlad.  The one we know and love so much.  The one who not only, apparently, cares about what kind of Christmas tree one should get for the holiday season, but who apparently doesn't like it when his adopted daughter, named Georgia, tries to rebel against papa's dearest held wishes that she not date that awful NATO boy. 

And then beats the shit out of her to get what he wants.

One wonders when his other daughter, Ukraine, will start acting up?

*spot the quote