shirtless Putin....what does it mean??

the story in the MoscowTimes.com is titled
"Shirtless Putin Gets Tongues Wagging". according to the article, Russian women are mighty impressed by the Russian leader's "vigorous torso". gay chat rooms in Russia suggest that:

"...Putin, by stripping to his waist, was somehow pleading for more tolerance of homosexuality in Russia -- where gays and lesbians are for the most part forced to remain closeted."

sorry, gay Russians...i think the ladies of Russia are onto something. i think that Putin is trying to inject some testosterone into a dying Russian society.

whether it's because they're flagellating themselves for sins of the past or because the decades under communist rule sapped their desire to preserve the future, the facts are that Russia is in a population death spiral, with severely low birthrates and a diseased, hard-drinking/hard-smoking population dying off early on the back end. Russia is loaded down with natural resources which could enrich their country, but if they have no Russians to harvest these, what good will they do? and, not only that, will there be enough Russians to defend their vast country? who, exactly, is supposed to stop the Chinese if they decided to expand into Russian territory?

Russia is growing to great lengths to reverse this trend. this article from MSNBC describes how one region in Russia has declared that Sept. 12 be a "Day of Conception", where employers will allow employees to take the day off to get it on, and produce a buttload of new "patriots" nine months later. according to the article, in his state of the nation address last year, Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia’s birthrate, including cash incentives to families to have more than one child.

British writer Edward Lucas sees something more sinister afoot. in his article
"Sex For The Motherland: Russian Youths Urged to Procreate at Camp", Lucas describes what he calls a "cult"-like movement being sponsored by Putin and the Kremlin (pictured below):

this is a gathering of an organization called "Nashi", meaning "Ours":

"Nashi's annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.

Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.


Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear - supposedly a cause of sterility - and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments."

Lucas doesn't see this as an effort to reverse the downward population trend...he sees it as more of a "Hitler Youth", anti-democracy movement. okay, maybe, i don't really know. his thesis gets lost in the article, in my opinion. i will grant that it's weird.