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Putin given tiger cub as birthday present

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-11 14:36

It was the perfect gift for the ultimate hard man of world politics: a tiger cub presented to the former Russian president Vladimir Putin for his 56th birthday.

Vladimir Putin poses with a two and a half month female tiger cub, no name yet given, at the Novo Ogaryovo residence of outside Moscow, on Thursday night, October 9, 2008. The cub was presented to Putin on October 7, when he was celebrating his 56 birthday.[Agencies]

The two-month-old female Siberian tiger cub, a rare species native to northeastern Asia, will eventually be housed in a zoo or wildlife reserve.

Mr Putin was photographed stroking the 20lb cat - he has yet to decide between the names Mashenka and Milashka - which lay in a wicker basket with a tiger-print cushion on the verandah of his Moscow residence.

But he refused to say who had given him the animal, which he showed to Russian reporters after calling them late on Thursday evening.

He ushered them into the residence, telling them "not to make noise, make a clatter or squeal", and then took them to the cub.

Mr Putin, who became prime minister this year after installing an ally in his former Kremlin job, has always relished the appearance of a red-blooded man of action.

Between directing high affairs of state - bombarding the Chechen capital, for example, or seizing the assets of wayward oil companies - he has pursued a keen interest in hunting and martial arts.

Mr Putin already has a labrador dog called Koni, which accompanies him to meetings with world leaders - but Koni and the cub have yet to be introduced.

In August he shot a fully grown Siberian tiger with a tranquiliser dart as part of an environmental tracking programme.