Putin's fixation with shamans

Vladimir Putin allegedly met shamans during his recent trips to Siberia and Mongolia to seek their blessing for the use of nuclear weapons, according to Russian opposition figures.

The Russian president is well known for performing religious orthodoxy, casting himself as a defender of Christianity around the world. The former KGB officer is also reportedly extremely superstitious, known for refusing to publicly say the name of the deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny. He is also said to be interested in paganism, allegedly taking regular baths in an extract from the blood of severed deer antlers in the belief that it has rejuvenating powers. 

But this month Putin travelled to Mongolia, his first visit to a member state of the International Criminal Court since it issued a warrant for his arrest last year. En route he stopped in the Tuva region of Siberia, "ostensibly to give a lesson in patriotism to schoolchildren", said The Times. According to Mikhail Zygar, founder of opposition television channel TV Dozhd (which is banned in Russia), Putin's real reason for the "risky trip" was to consult shamans – allegedly to seek their blessing for the use of nuclear weapons.

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Land of ice and shamans

Mongolia and Tuva are considered home to the most powerful shamans in the world, wrote Zygar, the author of several books about the Kremlin, in Der Spiegel. Putin combines his interest in Orthodox mysticism with pagan traditions.

The secretive leader allegedly sought the advice of mystics before launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. "All of them assured him of a military victory," said Zygar. Last year Russian state media reported that Kara-ool Dopchun-ool, known as Russia's "supreme shaman", had asked "the sun, the moon and the stars" to protect the Kremlin's troops in Ukraine. 

Putin has also made regular trips to Tuva with his former defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who was born there, to participate in pagan rituals, according to Zygar. 

"It was Shoigu who first brought Vladimir Putin into contact with shamans," Zygar wrote. After Putin returned from Mongolia, said Zygar, rumours began to spread that he had sought shamans' blessings for the use of nuclear weapons because he was afraid of "angering the spirits".

The alleged meetings, which have not been confirmed, are said to have been organised by Putin's close ally Mikhail Kovalchuk, the head of Russia's Kurchatov nuclear research institute and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 

Russia's obsession with the occult

Putin is "interested in the question of his own longevity, as well as reincarnation", wrote Abbas Gallyamov, political analyst and former Kremlin speechwriter, according to The Times.

But his eclectic interests are far from unusual in his homeland. There is a "deep vein of mysticism, occultism and conspiracy theory in Russian culture", said The Spectator. There are even said to be more occult faith healers than medical doctors. 

Longstanding rumours suggest Russian officials consult fortune-tellers and astrologers. There are also rumours of "secret altars" where Putin "presides over martial sacrifices". Some suggest that Putin's hiking holidays with Shoigu to Siberia have "nothing to do with the stunning scenery or clean air, and everything to do with the quest for Shambhala, a mystical land supposed to hold secrets of immortality". 

In 2019, a self-described "shaman warrior" set out from Siberia to Moscow to exorcise the "demonic" Putin, said Politico. 

Aleksandr Gabyshev planned to walk 8,300 kilometres before arriving at the Kremlin in 2021. "God told me that Putin is not a man, that he is a demon, and that I must exorcise him," said Gabyshev during his journey. "There can be no democracy with the demon [in power]."

But after travelling about 3,000 kilometres he came up against the limits of Russian democracy, when he was arrested and confined to a psychiatric hospital. He has been there ever since.

"While a Western public may find the shaman's exorcism quest funny," said The Washington Times, "Mr Putin does not."