MOSCOW - Russia's two top leaders, believed to be close to a decision on which of them will run for president, spent Tuesday fishing and boating on the Volga river in a rare, day-long private meeting, the Kremlin said.
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev spend
a holiday together in Astrakhan, southern Russia, Aug 16, 2011. [Photo/CFP] |
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went for a walk on the river bank in the Astrakhan region in southern Russia, did some spin fishing and then set off for a boat trip to take underwater pictures.
The meeting on the Volga was not announced in advance. Putin arrived from Moscow, where he was meeting his Belarussian counterpart on Monday, while Medvedev flew in from the Black Sea resort of Sochi where he is spending his summer holiday.
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Russian President Medvedev holds a fish he caught during his holiday
with Prime Minister Putin in Astrakhan, southern Russia, Aug 16,
2011. [Photo/CFP] |
One picture posted on the Kremlin website www.kremlin.ru showed Medvedev posing in a wetsuit with an underwater camera, another holding a half-metre long pike fish with Putin in the background and a third in which he was steering a motorboat.
Putin, a keen fisherman who himself donned a wetsuit last week to dive at an underwater archaeological in the Black Sea, was captured struggling to take a much smaller fish off the hook.
Both Medvedev and Putin have hinted that one of them, but not both, will run in the March 2012 presidential election and are expected to make a decision soon.
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev prepares to dive with an underwater
camera in the river Volga in Russia's Astrakhan region August 16,
2011. [Photo/Agencies] |
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Russian Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev fish during a holiday, Aug 16, 2011.
[Photo/CFP] |
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Russian President Medvedev sails on a boat during their holiday on Tuesday. Prime Minister
Putin was also present. [Photo/CFP] |
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