Q 01/05

Before entering politics, Putin spent 16 years as an officer in which organisation?

A) The KGB

B) The Red Army

C) The GRU

D) The Interior Ministry

Answer · why

A) The KGB

He rose to lieutenant colonel and says he resigned on the second day of the August 1991 coup attempt.

Q 02/05

Putin was born in 1952 in which city, then called Leningrad?

A) Nizhny Novgorod

B) Yekaterinburg

C) Saint Petersburg

D) Novosibirsk

Answer · why

C) Saint Petersburg

The city reverted to its old name in 1991, the year he left the KGB.

Q 03/05

Putin's grandfather Spiridon worked as a personal cook to which two Soviet leaders?

A) Khrushchev and Brezhnev

B) Lenin and Stalin

C) Trotsky and Bukharin

D) Stalin and Beria

Answer · why

B) Lenin and Stalin

Two of Putin's older brothers died before he was born, one during the wartime siege of the city.

Q 04/05

Putin's brother Viktor died in 1942 during which wartime event?

A) The Battle of Stalingrad

B) The Battle of Kursk

C) The Battle of Moscow

D) The Siege of Leningrad

Answer · why

D) The Siege of Leningrad

Viktor died of diphtheria and starvation; Putin's father was severely wounded the same year.

Q 05/05

Putin's high school ran an immersion programme in which language, in which he remains fluent?

A) English

B) French

C) Chinese

D) German

Answer · why

D) German

He has given speeches and interviews in that language, and later served the KGB in East Germany.