Russians celebrated their president's birthday with an outpouring of public adoration and kitsch iconography today.
Nationalist Russians snapped up Vladimir Putin T-shirts, before attending a number of choreographed shows of support staged across the country in honour of the long-serving statesman.
In Moscow, a bizarre one-day exhibition dubbed the '12 Labours of Putin' was held, in which the president was depicted as Hercules - battling Western nations disguised as serpents and monsters or taming an ox bearing the symbol of Crimea, the Ukrainian region annexed by Russia in March.

Putin's always-high ratings have skyrocketed this year as he responded to a pro-European coup in Ukraine by seizing Crimea, and reacted defiantly to Western sanctions.
His approval rating remains at 86 percent according to the independent Levada Center, which conducted a poll in September with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent.
The support comes despite serious problems for Russia's economy, with Moscow's central bank today forced to prop up the beleaguered rouble.
As the Russian economy shuddered due to Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, £1.1 billion was thrown at keeping the currency afloat over two days, reported Bloomberg.
The IMF gave a strong warning over the Russian economy saying growth would sink to 0.2 per cent for 2014, with a bleak outlook for next year, while analysts warned the rouble was under 'permanent pressure' and inflation was rising.
The currency has lost 14 per cent against the US dollar in three months.




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-Hercules.html

happy birthday Putin