The vocal stylings of Vladimir Putin

Um…yeah. So this happened: The 58-year-old Russian Prime Minister-pilot-hunter-judo black belt added another line to his resume during a charity event in St. Petersburg Friday night, when he sang "Blueberry Hill" to an appreciative audience that realized they had not seen it all. The U.K. Daily Mail reports that Putin was urged to the stage ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Um...yeah. So this happened:

Um…yeah. So this happened:

The 58-year-old Russian Prime Minister-pilot-hunter-judo black belt added another line to his resume during a charity event in St. Petersburg Friday night, when he sang "Blueberry Hill" to an appreciative audience that realized they had not seen it all.

The U.K. Daily Mail reports that Putin was urged to the stage by the event’s host, and modestly admitted, "Like an overwhelming majority of people, I can neither sing nor play, but I very much like doing it."

He proceeded to tickle the ivories on a piano — stumbling a bit on a Soviet-era patriotic song, "From Where the Motherland Begins" — before the band played the introduction to "Blueberry Hill."[…]

According to the Mail, Putin’s spokesman explained the former KGB head and president learned the song’s lyrics as part of his English language studies.

The event was a charity concert for children suffering from eye diseases and cancer. Spotted in the crowd: Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner and Sharon Stone.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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