Putin doesn’t really want to live forever

Rejuvenation is unstoppable, we will prevail,’ blared the editorial in the Chinese newspaper Global Times. The subject was China’s resurgence, but it looked oddly apposite in light of an inadvertently overheard conversation between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Biotechnology is continuously developing,’ commented Putin as the two men walked towards the podium in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square during the military parade to mark 80 years since Japan’s surrender in World War Two.

“In the past, it used to be rare for someone to be older than 70 and these days they say that at 70 one’s still a child,” the 72-year-old Xi replied to his similarly-aged counterpart.

“Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and even achieve immortality.”

“Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

This was, of course, a gift to sketch-writers, satirists and anyone looking to poke fun at Putin in particular. Putin wants to be immortal! After all, there had already been the tales of his bathing in blood from the severed antlers of Siberian red deer as a rejuvenate folk remedy, and last year Putin established the New Health Preservation Technologies research centre, dedicated to developing “technologies that prevent cellular aging, neurotechnologies, and other innovations aimed at ensuring longevity.”

We should hardly be surprised that an aging autocrat with the means to do so would support such research. I dare say many 70-year-olds might want another 70 years, if physical and cognitive decay can be kept in abeyance.

There is also a powerful political dimension. In a personalistic system like Putin’s, so much depends on the health of the monarch. As soon as he anoints a successor, he risks becoming a lame duck – and he also recognizes what he is still trying to deny, that there can be a Russia without Putin.

Putin’s family, his clients and his cronies also face a potentially bleak future, given that their security and pampered lives depend on his presence. Indeed, a cynic might wonder whether New Health Preservation Technologies was also a vessel for nepotism – that acceptable form of immortality-by-proxy – given that Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria Vorontsova, is an endocrinologist working on a genetic research program to boost longevity. Besides, is this that different from those tech bros like Bryan Johnson, who spends $2 million a year in a strict regime intended to stop or wind back his metabolic clock?

As an opportunity for a more light-hearted Western reporting, it was a gift. But it was even more appreciated by Russians, who already have indulged their subversive spirit at the expense of Putin’s efforts to mask the ravages of age. Indeed, there was for a while a fashion for posting historical pictures “proving” that he is already immortal, following the publication of photos of a Bolshevik Red Guard from 1920 and a Soviet soldier from 1941, who did in fairness resemble a younger Putin.

But while some Western journalists have mistaken this, and separate claims that Putin has a time machine or is a clone, as evidence of his hubris and his personality cult, they are, rather, example of styob. There’s no neat way of translating this Russian word, which has its roots in “lashing out.” It is essentially fanciful conspiracy theory mobilized as a parody of some orthodoxy. It is not meant to be enjoyed, but savored for its very transgressiveness and outlandishness.

The most infamous was the tongue-in-cheek claim that Bolshevik leader Lenin had consumed so many magic mushrooms that he had actually become one himself. In what was a seemingly serious documentary broadcast on Leningrad TV in 1991, musician Sergey Kuryokhin played the role of an historian defending his thesis with all kinds of non sequiturs and fake “evidence.” It was the last year of the Soviet Union, and the Party’s grip on culture had loosened enough for this to be possible, but strong enough that this was still deliciously transgressive.

This seems to be how most Russians are treating the whole “Putin wants to live forever” story. (Indeed, Xi himself seemed to be treating the conversation rather light-heartedly.) If we take it too seriously, well, then the styob’s on us.