Kyrgyzstan’s parliament on Thursday voted to put Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the map by giving his name to one of its mountain peaks. A mountain measuring 4,446m in the country’s northern Tian Shan range will henceforth be known as the Peak of Vladimir Putin, after parliament endorsed the idea proposed by the government of the central Asian state.
A government official told the parliament that Putin, who enjoys being photographed in rugged outdoor pursuits, such as horse-riding and swimming in lakes, was keen to climb the peak.
Putin heard of the idea from his counterpart, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev, and joked that he ought to be the first to climb the newly renamed mountain, the government’s envoy to the parliament told lawmakers.
The initiative was backed by almost all the deputies in the recently elected coalition parliament.
“There’s nothing wrong with giving a mountain the name of Vladimir Putin. After all, we’re not giving him the whole mountain,” lawmaker Narynbek Moldobayev said.
Another lawmaker, Nurlan Sulaimanov, fretted that the diminutive Russian prime minister might be offended by the relatively small size of the peak, in a country where several mountains tower above 7,000m.
“We should give the Russian politician’s name not to a 4,000m mountain, but to a taller one,” Sulaimanov told the parliament. “Otherwise Vladimir Vladimirovich might be offended that we did not value him highly enough.”
Only the country’s nationalist ATA Zhurt, or Fatherland Party, opposed the idea, arguing that the country’s mountains should only be named after Kyrgyz people.
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