Putin appears in new fitness video
In a meeting at a martial arts school on Moscow’s outskirts, Putin called for physical education rooted in a Soviet-era system.
“I think it would be quite appropriate to recall the positive experience of past decades when the so-called GTO, Ready for Labor and Defence, was in use in our country,” he said. The GTO mass physical training program was introduced in the 1930s under Stalin.
“The revival of this system - in a new, modern format - could bring major benefits,” Putin told government officials, schoolteachers and coaches.
He told the education and sports ministers to study the issue and said students’ performance under the system should be taken into account when universities consider applications.
Putin, who began a six-year term in May, has frequently appealed to nostalgia for the perceived order of the Soviet era.
Soviet-era marches played at the Sambo-70 school as students dressed in the white, red and blue of Russia’s flag waited for Putin at a ceremony to open a new building at the school. An announcer added to the martial atmosphere by urging “full alertness”.
Seagal’s action films are popular in Russia, and he has met the president several times. In what seemed to be a choreographed incident, Seagal rushed into a crowd of children trying to pose with Putin and pulled him out, as if acting as his bodyguard.
“Kids, remain calm, it’s a great honor to take pictures with the president of Russia,” the announcer said.
Putin and Seagal watched youngsters practice martial arts but did not join them on the gym floor, and Putin wore a jacket and button-down shirt.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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