Kremlin Denies Rumors Putin Married 30-Year-Old Gymnast
AP
President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks with gymnast Alina Kabayeva as he hosts Russia's Olympic athletes at a Kremlin banquet in Moscow, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004.
Following his recent divorce from wife Lyudmila, Russian president Vladimir Putin love life is once again the source of rumors.
In fact, things have gotten so bad that the Kremlin has had to specifically deny reports that he'd married 30-year-old gymnast Alina Kabayeva.
Throughout his 29 year marriage, there were been many rumors that Putin had a wandering eye, and back when he was working for the KGB in East Germany the country's spy agency reportedly described him as a "philanderer and a wifebeater."
This reputation followed Putin as he became Russia's most important man. In 2011 reports surfaced that suggested that Putin had put his rarely seen wife in a mental hospital, so that he could focus on alleged affairs with Kabaeva and his personal photographer Yana Lapikova. There were even crazy rumors of a dalliance with red-haired spy Anna Chapman.
These rumors seem to have been sparked again by a tweet from a former local official from the Caucasus last week:
Как мне сообщили, Путин с Кабаевой венчаются сегодня в иверском монастыре. Весь Валдай оцеплен.
— Kалой Ахильгов (@akaloy) September 21, 2013
(Rough translation: "I am told that Putin and Kabaeva married today in the Iversky Monastery. All of Lake Valdai cordoned off.")
This tweet was retweeted over 500 times, including by embattled opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Putin was in the area at the time, attending the annual Valdai summit.
However, in an interview with Izvestia today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov specifically denied the rumors, saying that people should stop interfering with Putin's love life "to him and not interfere.”
"It is useless to call the rumors nonsense," Peskov said. "They did this a hundred times already. Rumors live, what can we do with them? But they have nothing to do with reality."
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