Vladimir Putin may be the wild card in world affairs right now, but he didn't gain that influence overnight.
The Russian President's ascension to power is filled with spies, armed conflicts, oligarchs, oil and (of course) judo.
So here's how a onetime "nobody" climbed up the ranks to become the "World's Most Powerful Person."
Vladimir Putin was born in Leningrad on Oct. 7, 1952.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is the only child of a decorated war veteran and factory worker in the slums of Leningrad. He grew up in a Soviet Union styled communal apartment with two other families — as was typical at the time.
Source: Encyclopedia, TIME
As a teen Putin worked at his school's radio station, where he reportedly played music by the Beatles and other Western rock bands.
The photographer Platon — who took Putin's infamous Time Magazine cover in 2007 — said that Paul is Putin's favorite Beatle, and "Yesterday" is his favorite song.
However, "by [Putin's] own account, his favorite songs are Soviet standards, not Western rock. He has been deeply conservative his whole life," Karen Dawisha wrote in her new book, "Putin's Kleptocracy."
Source: Encyclopedia
Early on in life, Putin got into judo. He was his university's judo champion in 1974.
Former deputy finance minister and first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Sergey Alaksashenko believes that Putin's love of judo says something about his foreign policy.
"Unlike chess, a judo fighter should not wait for the opponent's move. His strategy is to wait until he gets a chance to execute a single quick move — and then take a step back. Successful judo fighters must anticipate their opponents' actions, make a decisive, preemptive move and try to disable them," he wrote in the Moscow Times.
Source: Encyclopedia
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