Little Nikita liked Putin kissing his stomach

Nikita Konkin, an ordinary Russian boy, who Vladimir Putin kissed on the stomach after lifting up his T-shirt, considers the event to have been a display of mutual liking.

“He just liked me!” modestly declared the Russian head of state’s object of affection to the Russian newspaper Izvestiya in an interview. “And I like him too. I would like to become president myself.”

Last week, after his meeting with finalists from military colleges in the main Kremlin grounds, Putin decided to return to his office on foot, and on the way, kissed the stomach of a 5-year-old boy named Nikita, who had come to the Kremlin on an excursion from Kolomna, in the outskirts of Moscow.

Since that moment, the president’s unusual gesture and Nikita Konkin’s future have become the subjects of active discussions.

Konkin is now relaxing away from the city. The day after his close encounter with the president of Russia, he did not go to nursery, and at the end of the week he went away with his grandma to the family dacha to avoid the glances of the curious inhabitants of Kolomna. In his room there now hangs a portrait of the president, given to him by a journalist.

“He likes him very much. When he took the poster to the dacha, he even refused to roll it up in the tube, he was afraid that it would get crumpled”, said Nikita’s mother. “He was just walking around the Kremlin, listening to the guide; he couldn’t have imagined that he would meet the president there. But he did. The president called him over to him, asked him who he was and where he was from and then kissed him right on the stomach.”

Nikita’s grandma said that he was so surprised that for a while he could say nothing and later even refused to wash. “He only agreed to bathe at the weekend because of the heat, but he would not rub himself with a brush.”