An intrigue-laced photo of a young tow-headed Vladimir Putin–decked out with camera and kid–is making the rounds again on Reddit. Putin is shown hanging around during a 1988 Ronald Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev meeting in Moscow–or at least lots of people think it’s Putin. What’s perhaps most interesting about the photo isn’t whether it’s Putin, but how it demonstrates the world’s current habit of seeing Putin everywhere. (Perhaps it resurfaced recently only because Putin had been laying low–and people missed him?)
Back in 2009, when the photo first came to light, it drew the attention of media outlets from the Times of India to The Telegraph. Pete Souza, then and still the official White House photographer (that’s some long career, Pete!), believes it was Putin. Souza might know best: he took the picture. Sousa has said he thinks almost every “tourist” and Russian citizen they met on Reagan’s trip was a KGB agent.
