[custom_adv] When Vladimir Putin was appointed prime minister of Russia, very little was known about his background. This former Soviet intelligence agent entered politics in the early 1990s and rose rapidly. By August of 1999, ailing President Boris Yeltsin [custom_adv] An only child, his father was a foreman in a metal factory and his mother was a homemaker. Putin lived with his parents in an apartment with two other families. [custom_adv] Though a small child, Putin could hold his own in fights thanks to martial arts classes. By the age of sixteen he was a top-ranked expert at sambo, a Russian combination of judo and wrestling. [custom_adv] By the time he was a teenager Putin had begun to display the ambition that he later became known for, and he attended a respected high school, School 281, which only accepted students with near-perfect grades. [custom_adv] The institution was the only one in Russia to stress chemistry, which was Putin's interest. However, he soon moved toward liberal arts and biology. Putin played handball and worked at the school radio station, where he played music by the Beatles and other Western rock bands. [custom_adv] Earlier this week, the daily announced that it had found President Vladimir Putin's grade book in the dusty attic of a small wooden house where he spent his childhood summers. [custom_adv] The book painted a picture of an 11-year-old boy who was far from any sort of greatness at the time. One instructor's comment said, "before class [Putin] threw chalkboard erasers at the children." [custom_adv] Others read: "Didn't do his math homework." "Behaved badly during singing class." "Talks in class." The grade book revealed that Putin was once caught passing notes to a boy named Bogandov when he should have been paying attention to his teacher.
