Total rent from the building is about $3–4 million. [460][461], There are many songs about Putin. Many in the Russian press and in the international media warned that the deaths of 130 hostages in the special forces' rescue operation during the crisis would severely damage President Putin's popularity. [208][209][210] On 2 April, Putin again issued an address in which he announced prolongation of the non-working time until 30 April. “Even now, though he talks about them occasionally, he never names them. Their recommendations were made public in 2002 after eight years of work, but were subsequently rejected by Shkrebneva, who used Russia's burgeoning economy as one of her reasons why the orthographic reform was not just unnecessary but untimely. She won a bronze model as a teenager at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, before striking gold four years later in Athens - the year she is reputed to have met Putin. Photographer Mikhail Korolov, who took the images of Kabaeva draped in just a fur, said: “I didn’t even need to persuade her. [62] The dissertation committee denied the accusations. The Russian Academy of Science sponsored a commission to study the orthography of the Russian language and propose changes. [358] However, Putin has stated that U.S.–Russian relations, already at the lowest level since the end of the Cold War,[359] have continued to deteriorate after Trump took office in January 2017. On 13 May 2000, he issued a decree putting the 89 federal subjects of Russia into seven administrative federal districts and appointed a presidential envoy responsible for each of those districts (whose official title is Plenipotentiary Representative). [16][17], In January 2016, Lyudmila was reported to have married a man named Artur Ocheretny in early 2015.[18]. [84], In 2003, a referendum was held in Chechnya, adopting a new constitution which declares that the Republic of Chechnya is a part of Russia; on the other hand, the region did acquire autonomy. [5][482], Putin has two grandsons, born in 2012 and 2017. [321] In a July 2014 speech midst an armed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine, Putin stated he would use Russia's "entire arsenal" and "the right of self defence" to protect Russian speakers outside Russia. During the Russian financial crash of August 1998, Putin learned that financial crises are politically destabilizing and must be avoided at all costs. [81], Between 2000 and 2004, Putin set about the reconstruction of the impoverished condition of the country, apparently winning a power-struggle with the Russian oligarchs, reaching a 'grand bargain' with them. In 2015, Lyudmila is reported to have married a man called Artur Ocheretny. In August 2007, Russian expedition Arktika 2007, part of research related to the 2001 Russian territorial extension claim, planted a flag on the seabed below the North Pole. As president, he took an active personal part in promoting the Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, signed 17 May 2007 that restored relations between the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia after the 80-year schism. Both Russian and American officials, however, denied the idea of a new Cold War. [473], In April 2008, the Moskovsky Korrespondent reported that Putin had divorced Shkrebneva and was engaged to marry rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva. [137], In 2012 and 2013, Putin and the United Russia party backed stricter legislation against the LGBT community, in Saint Petersburg, Archangelsk and Novosibirsk; a law called the Russian gay propaganda law, that is against "homosexual propaganda" (which prohibits such symbols as the rainbow flag as well as published works containing homosexual content) was adopted by the State Duma in June 2013. During his first tenure as president, the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, with GDP measured by purchasing power increasing by 72%, real incomes increased by a factor of 2.5, real wages more than tripled; unemployment and poverty more than halved and the Russians' self-assessed life satisfaction rose significantly.