It is rare in Russia that people talk about Vladimir Putin's family and even more rare that the president himself refers to them.
But recently, on August 11, on the occasion of having registered the first Russian vaccine against covid-19, it was precisely Putin who named it, commenting that one of his daughters had tested it.
The Russian leader then pointed out that she had had a slight fever but no major complications.
Putin's comment put the secrecy surrounding the Russian leader's family back on the table.
This time, the president raised the veil that surrounds his close ones again only a few centimeters and did not even specify which of his two daughters, Masha (diminutive of María) or Katia (Yekaterina, corresponding to Spanish Catalina), was part of the small group of volunteers to whom the vaccine was inoculated during the second clinical phase (now, after being registered, it is in its third and final stage during which it must be tested in tens of thousands of people).
Masha - born the same year as Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, in 1985, when Putin was in the KGB in Leningrad (his hometown, now Saint Petersburg) - is an endocrinologist and the second, Katia, a researcher with a reputation as an athlete.
According to some information, the name used by the first-born is Maria Vorontsova, married to a Dutch citizen, Jorrit Faassen, a businessman who worked at the gas giant Gazprom.
The couple live in the attic of a privileged Moscow skyscraper and are the parents of a son born in 2002. In addition to this grandson, Putin has another born in 2017. The Russian president spoke of one of them in the series of interviews he conducted. the famous and controversial American director Oliver Stone.
Katia, born a year later in Dresden, where the KGB assigned Putin, is according to the
kremlinologists
Yekaterina Tíjonova, a researcher who heads an investment program at the University of Moscow.
Observers speculate that she could also have been one of the Spútnik V volunteers - as the vaccine has been baptized - because although she is not a doctor, she is, in addition to being a scientist, also an athlete and as such enjoys excellent health.
The sport that Katia practiced professionally was acrobatic rock and there are photos of Yekaterina Tíjonova participating in championships with Iván Klímov.
The pair of athletes won a silver medal at the 2014 Russian championship.
In her time, there was more than one confirmation that Tíjonova is the youngest daughter of the Russian leader, but almost immediately afterwards the denials came and Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, when asked about it, replied that he did not know the genealogy of Yekaterina Tíjonova.
It is also known that she has been the wife of billionaire Kiril Shamálov (they would have married in 2013 and separated in 2018).
It has been written that if Putin could have imposed secrecy on her daughters when they studied, they would hardly continue in the shadows if they themselves did not want it and consider it convenient.
Ludmila, Putin's wife and mother of Masha and Katia, also did not like being in the public spotlight, preferring a low profile as a first lady dedicated primarily to charitable and cultural issues.
After her divorce was announced and she remarried, she has practically disappeared.
Her maiden name was Shkrébneva, she was a stewardess, she studied Spanish at university, then she taught German.
She married Putin in 1983 and 30 years later they divorced.
The announcement was made jointly and publicly during the premiere of the
Esmeralda
ballet
by Cesare Pugni.
In 2016 the press reported her new marriage, this time to Artur Ocheretni, 20 years her junior.
The Kremlin has declined to comment on the matter.
Since then she has apparently only been seen once with her new husband: it happened at the end of March 2017 at London's Heathrow airport.
Much more is known about Putin than about his family, but his private life remains shrouded in mystery.
He has been attributed a series of relationships with various women - among which there have been two dancers, a boxer, an opera singer and a failed spy - but the one who most figures as his girlfriend is the gymnast Alina Kabáyeva, and according to some means with her has had one or more children.
All this news has been officially denied.
But what practically no one doubts is that he has a partner, since Putin himself gave it to understand by responding in December 2014 to the question of whether he had time for his private life.
On that occasion, he said that on this level "everything is in order" and related that after his divorce a high European official asked him if someone loved him and if he in turn loved someone, to which he responded affirmatively.
