For holiday stocking stuffers, Kremlin officials get ‘little red book’ of Putin quotes

Russian officials have received a collection of Vladimir Putin's quotations as a New Year's gift from the Kremlin. The book, titled “Words Тhat Аre Changing the World: Key Quotes From Vladimir Putin,” went to about 1,000 officials, each accompanied by a letter from the deputy head of Putin's administration, Vyacheslav Volodin. 

The book will be helpful for understanding the basis for political decisions, said Volodin, who mentioned the book last week at a meeting with deputies, senators, and members of the Civic Chamber. He called the book a “desktop reference,” and said that every politician should have one.

The pro-Kremlin “Set’” (“Network”) movement published the collection and supplied the Kremlin with the copies. The movement says it plans to sell more books of Putin's quotations to the general public.

“First, we began to notice that everything Putin says, to a varying degree, comes true. In this book, we have looked over his words and affirmed this idea. Putin's words can be called prophetic,” said the book's author, Anton Volodin (no relation to Vyacheslav Volodin), about his motivation for collecting Putin's speeches in a book.

“Words That Are Changing the World: Key Quotes From Vladimir Putin” includes 19 unabridged speeches by Putin. The book's length is about 400 pages.

“Network” did not comment on the sources of its funding. In July 2015, Aleksey Navalny said the movement had received grants of around 70 million rubles (close to $1 million) funnelled through other organizations.