Commenting on Putin’s “annexation speech” on September 30, Shaun Walker wrote in the Guardian:
Today, he offered an angrier but less coherent denunciation of the west, more angry taxi driver than head of state.
If you’ve ever heard a post-Soviet driver rant and rave, pouring it all out, you’ll probably agree. Now the curious part begins. Here’s The Moscow Times in 2018:
President Vladimir Putin had considered becoming a taxi driver after failing to secure his boss’s victory in St. Petersburg’s mayoral elections in the mid-1990s, he revealed in a documentary film aired on the eve of Russia’s presidential elections.
Over to CNBC, three years later:
Putin reportedly said: “Sometimes [I] had to moonlight and drive a taxi. It is unpleasant to talk about this but, unfortunately, this also took place.”
To use a cliché, the world would be a better place now if he had become a full-time cabbie then. His angry monologues would be completely harmless compared with his presidential speeches.