Lyudmila Putina

For other uses, see Putina (disambiguation).

This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Aleksandrovna and the family name is Putina.

Lyudmila Putina Людми́ла Пу́тина
First Lady of the Russian Federation
In office 7 May 2012 – 6 June 2013
President	Vladimir Putin
Preceded by	Svetlana Medvedeva
Succeeded by	Vacant
In office 7 May 2000 – 7 May 2008
Preceded by	Naina Yeltsina
Succeeded by	Svetlana Medvedeva
Second Lady of Russia
In office 7 May 2008 – 7 May 2012
Preceded by	Zoya Zoubkova
Succeeded by	Svetlana Medvedeva
In office 16 August 1999 – 7 May 2000
Preceded by	Tamara Stepashina
Succeeded by	Irina Kasyanova
Personal details
Born	Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Shkrebneva (1958-01-06) 6 January 1958 Kaliningrad, Soviet Union
Spouse(s)	Vladimir Putin (m. 1983–2014)
Children	2
Alma mater	Leningrad State University
Religion	Russian Orthodox

Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Putina (Russian: Людми́ла Алекса́ндровна Пу́тина, pronounced [lʲʊdˈmʲilə ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvnə ˈputʲɪnə], Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Putina, née Shkrebneva, Шкребнева; born 6 January 1958) is the ex-wife of the President and former Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

Early life and education

Putina was born in Kaliningrad, Soviet Union, the daughter of Alexander Abramovich Shkrebnev (Александр Абрамович Шкребнев) and Catherine Tikhonovna Shkrebneva (Екатерина Тихоновна Шкребнева). Her father worked at Kaliningrad Mechanical Plant.

She was educated as a linguist. In 1986, Putina graduated from the branch of Spanish language and philology of the Department of Philology of Leningrad State University.

Career

The Putins' wedding on 28 July 1983

In her early years she was a flight attendant for the Kaliningrad branch of Aeroflot. From 1990 to 1994 she taught German at the Department of Philology of Leningrad State University. For a few years until 1999 she was a Moscow representative of the JSC Telecominvest.

Putina maintained a low profile on the Russian political stage, generally avoiding the limelight except as required by protocol and restricting her public role to supportive statements about her husband.

Proposals for spelling changes

Putina is a curator of a fund that aimed to develop the Russian language and sometimes produces statements concerning Russian language and education. Her preference for "maintaining and preserving" the Russian language has led her to make public statements against orthographic reform. The Russian Academy of Science sponsored a commission to study the orthography of the Russian language and propose changes. Their recommendations were made public in 2002 after eight years of work, but were subsequently shot down by Putina, who used Russia's burgeoning economy as one of her reasons why the orthographic reform was not just unnecessary but untimely. However, although one newspaper in Moscow alleged that "Lyudmila Putina de facto cancelled any attempts to reform spelling," the fact remains that public and academic reaction to the reforms were sufficiently negative to have that particular reform attempt abandoned.

Marriage and divorce

Lyudmila Putina with Vladimir Putin after his inauguration on 7 May 2000.

Putina met Vladimir Putin in Leningrad. They married on 28 July 1983; the couple had two daughters, Maria (born 1985) and Yekaterina (Katja) (born 1986 in Dresden, East Germany). The children attended the German School in Moscow (Deutsche Schule Moskau) until Putin's appointment as Prime Minister in 1999. Their photographs are not published by the Russian media, and no family portrait has ever been issued.

On 6 June 2013, Putina and her husband publicly announced termination of their marriage based on a mutual decision. The divorce announcement was made on camera for Russian news media at the Kremlin Palace, ending years of speculation about their relationship. In April 2014, the Kremlin confirmed that their divorce had been finalized.

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• Official biography (Russian)