Borodino, Russia
President Vladimir Putin is descended from serfs who belonged to relatives of the first royal czars, a Moscow genealogist has found. At Putin’s request, genealogist Vladimir Melnikov traced the president’s family back as far as he could: 13 generations. The earliest ancestor he found was Yakim Nikitin, a peasant who lived on Romanov land in the early 1600s with his sons, Faddei, Frol, and Tit. Had Putin’s ancestors belonged to a lesser noble, there would have been few extant records.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Political cartoons for December 12Cartoons Friday's political cartoons include presidential piracy, emissions capping, and the Argentina bailout
-
The Week Unwrapped: what’s scuppering Bulgaria’s Euro dream?Podcast Plus has Syria changed, a year on from its revolution? And why are humans (mostly) monogamous?
-
Will there be peace before Christmas in Ukraine?Today's Big Question Discussions over the weekend could see a unified set of proposals from EU, UK and US to present to Moscow
