The Putins Clan Book Published in Russia

Vladimir Putin's namesake discovers he is  a cousin of the Russian president

President Vladimir Putin said at a recent press conference that his ancestors were living in the Tver region for more than 300 years. President's cousin Alexander Putin has managed to determine that the Putins clan could be traced in the 16th century.

Alexander Putin is a great grand-cousin of the Russian president. Alexander's profession is not connected with history - he is the deputy director of the drilling company Alliance, based in the town of Usinsk. He was born in 1953 in the city of Ryazan and spent his childhood in the Tver region.

"This is where the Putins come from. I have traced the entire family tree with the help of the employees of the Tver regional archive. I was not driven with vanity. Almost all my relatives died during WWII, I wanted to collect the information about them and hand it over to my son Mikhail. Then it became a very interesting thing for me to do, and I got involved in the research completely. To my great surprise, I found out that Vladimir Putin was my great grand-cousin! I tried to check, if there was a mistake in my research, but everything was proved with documents: we had a common ancestor in the fourth generation. I decided to make a family tree, to make a present to Vladimir Putin. I based my book "The Putins Clan" on my research, a thousand copies of the book were published in the city of Syktyvkar. The book is not for sale, it is meant for relatives and friends. It cost me pretty good money, I could have bought a new car for that sum. I managed to publish the book on the threshold of St.Petersburg's 300th anniversary. I have sent a copy of the book to Vladimir Putin too.

Elena Yefremova, director of the Tver regional archive, commented on Alexander Putin's work: "The research has been done with the scientific precision. Fortunately, the documents about the Tver region, where the Putins lived for almost 400 years, were not lost in WWII. We found the register of births in the settlements of Borodino and Pominovo, where Vladimir Putin's ancestors lived, we studied the population census material and traced the history of the clan until the 17th century. Scientists of heraldry from Moscow and other regions are currently trying to trace Vladimir Putin's deeper roots."