Mr. Diumin told the story of his encounter with the bear in February. Former bodyguards always have a stock of true-life tales for deployment at the dinner table. But Mr. Diumin’s account came only when he became a major Russian politician. That month, he was named acting governor of Tula province, an area just over a hundred miles from Moscow.
OP-ED
Oleg Kashin: How do you get to be a governor in Vladimir Putin’s Russia?
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives at the Hangzhou International Expo Centre for the G20 Summit in Hangzhou on September 4, 2016.
According to Aleksei Diumin, it happened late one night, far from Moscow. He was standing guard at a presidential palace where Vladimir V. Putin was sleeping. A bear approached. "He and I looked each other in the eyes," Mr. Diumin told a Russian newspaper. Then the bear backed away slightly. "I opened the door and emptied my gun's entire clip at his feet." The bear retreated. Russia's president was safe.
