Top 8 Putin moments: From Harley-riding bad boy to Formula One driver

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is known for his displays of athletic prowess and daring feats, as well as the occasional croon before an audience. His visit this week to a Russian youth camp did not disappoint. Here are some of his most notable romps throughout Russia.

Firefighter

Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/AP
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with people, who suffered from forests fire which swept the area in the village of Verkhnyaya Vereya in this July 2010 file photo.

Putin swung into action in July 2010 as more than 600 brush and forest fires swept across western Russia. He was front-and-center on evening TV news broadcasts, whipping officialdom into shape, reassuring the population, and holding televised meetings in which he upbraided lax local officials and promised rapid and generous state assistance for the fire victims.

Putin also literally took to the air as copilot of a Be-200 amphibious fire-fighting aircraft (see video here) that scooped water from a lake and dropped it onto two forest fires.

"This is Putin's personal style, he likes to show that he's everywhere, that he can do anything,"Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow, told the Monitor at the time. "And all indications show that this works. Russians feel reassured to have such a leader, and they miss Putin as president. You can see it in their eyes."

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