Russia has long held a special fascination for me. Back in college I took two years of Russian, and I have still have my textbooks, notes, and various odds and ends related to the subject. In the last category are a couple collections of Soviet-era political jokes. From reading A Tsar Is Born, it is clear that this genre is still alive and in fact thriving.

Stalin’s ghost appears to Putin in a dream, and Putin asks for him help running the country. Stalin says, “Round up and shoot all the democrats, and then paint the inside of the Kremlin blue.” “Why blue?” Putin asks. “Ha!” says Stalin. “I knew you wouldn’t ask me about the first part.”

Putin and Bush are fishing on the Volga River. After half an hour Bush complains, “Vladimir, I’m getting bitten like crazy by mosquitoes, but I haven’t seen a single one bothering you.” Putin: “They know better than that.”

The Russian constitution prohibits Putin from having another term as President, so his current subordinate Dmitri Medvedev will run in his place:

Putin goes to a restaurant with Medvedev and orders a steak. The waiter asks, “And what about the vegetable?” Putin answers, “The vegetable will have steak too.”

For all that, and despite his suppression of Democratic freedoms, he is very popular among ordinary Russians:

For every journalist distressed at the rollback of freedoms, there are scores of Russians who quietly applaud Putin’s efforts to reassert stability….

Putin’s mission is not to win over the West. It is to restore to Russians a sense of their nation’s greatness, something they have not known for years….

In his eight years as President, he has guided his nation through a remarkable transformation. He has restored stability and a sense of pride among citizens….

Perhaps I should dust off those old books.