Vladimir Putin has an eight-year-old granddaughter — Elza Tikhonova. Her parents are the Russian president’s younger daughter and ballet dancer Igor Zelensky.

Source: Agentstvo

Vladimir Putin has an eight-year-old granddaughter, the daughter of Katerina Tikhonova, head of the Innopraktika foundation and the Russian president’s younger daughter, and ballet dancer Igor Zelensky. Journalists with the Russian investigative outlet Proekt found that the girl is named Elza Igorevna Tikhonova.

Putin’s granddaughter received her mother’s invented surname but kept her father’s patronymic. Proekt’s investigators suggest she was named after Princess Elsa, the character from the animated film Frozen. They point to her mother’s known fondness for Hollywood: at her wedding to her first husband, Kirill Shamalov, Tikhonova performed a song by the princess from the American animated film Anastasia.

Journalists identified the girl’s name by analyzing a leaked database from the Federal Border Service. In November 2019, shortly before her second birthday, she flew to Munich with her parents aboard a business jet operated by the German airline Air Hamburg, now known as VistaJet. Two years later, she flew to Croatia aboard a Bombardier Global 5000.

Russia’s president keeps members of his family hidden, and they live under different surnames. Journalists’ investigations have established that Vladimir Putin has three daughters: Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, from his former wife, Lyudmila Putina, as well as Luiza Rozova, a daughter born out of wedlock to Svetlana Krivonogikh.

The president also has two sons with gymnast Alina Kabaeva: Ivan and Vladimir Spiridonov. Putin is also known to have a grandson, Roman Faassen, the son of Vorontsova and her first husband, Dutch citizen Jorrit Faassen.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

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Vladimir Putin has an eight-year-old granddaughter — Elza Tikhonova. Her parents are the Russian president’s younger daughter and ballet dancer Igor Zelensky.

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Vladimir Putin has an eight-year-old granddaughter — Elza Tikhonova. Her parents are the Russian president’s younger daughter and ballet dancer Igor Zelensky.

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