He is the most talked-about person in Russia - even when he's nowhere to be seen. Moscow is buzzing with talk about the whereabouts of Vladimir Putin who took a week- long hiatus from public appearances from March 5, fuelling wild rumours about the president's health, political future and love life.
On Twitter, critics of the president have been tweeting morbid jokes and memes under the hashtag "Putin is dead", while Russian bloggers and pundits pore over the official Kremlin website looking for discrepancies in Mr Putin's alleged work schedule. Andrei Illarionov, a former adviser to Mr Putin now based in Washington, claimed in a blog post that Mr Putin had fallen victim to a palace coup and fled abroad, while Konstantin Remchukov, an influential Moscow editor, alleged that the state-owned oil company Rosneft's chairman Igor Sechin was about to get the boot, indicating that a big government shake-up was looming.
Where is Putin? Russian leader’s absence sparks rumors. - The Washington Post
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102503864
