“He is so sexy!”

On the day of Putin’s first inauguration in March 2000, my college friend called me and said, “Did you see him walking on that red carpet? So confident and sexy!”

I always hated him. Russia already lived through the first Chechen war and KGB explosions of apartment blocks and I knew where it was all heading.

“Sexy???” I just couldn’t. But it’s my friend, so let’s try something. “Imagine he is not a president yet. Still lives in St.Pete, just a low-rank city official, and you walk along the street and he is walking toward you. He is wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, capri shorts, money-belt around his waste…”

“Yeah, yeah,” my friend says as I describe a typical thug, wannabe millionaire from the late 1990s. “What else?”

“Crew socks in sandals,” I continue. “He is not tall, not handsome, or in any way attractive and we both know that.”

“Yeah,” she agrees reluctantly.

“So this character passes you, maybe whistles at you [my friend is very beautiful] and says you’re cute. Would you give him a second look?”

“In that situation, no,” my friend laughs. “Socks in sandals did it for me.”

We both laugh and then I add, “What makes him sexy now is the presidential power and the expensive suit and chutzpah it gives him. Inside, he is still a petty rotten KGB thug.”

Author’s note: I understand that socks in sandals can be somewhat controversial here and I notice that some younger men are wearing them more now. To me, and to most post-Soviet girls at the turn of the century, it was the ultimate symbol of infantilism in men. You can wear socks in sandals as a boy until you hit puberty. It’s even cute at that age. After that, if you have to wear socks, put on some sneakers or hiking shoes. Grown men wear sandals barefoot. Sandals are made specifically for your feet to breathe, not to be enveloped in socks.