From the archives: Putin's sensitive side
The name Vladimir Putin often conjures images of a bare-chested man on horseback or toppling his opponents with judo. But Putin wasn't always so self-assured.
In the 2005 story in the video player above, Putin recalled a difficult childhood, sharing a small room with his parents without a private bath or shower, part of a communal apartment in Leningrad. For fun as a teenager, he said, he escaped to the streets with his friends.
But young Putin was "smart, tough, self-disciplined, and lucky," Wallace said. He rose through the ranks of the KGB before being plucked from relative obscurity by Boris Yeltsin to become prime minister. When Yeltsin resigned in December 1999, he appointed Putin acting president, a position Putin held for three months before his election in March 2000.
"You look as though either you're overwhelmed or unhappy or worried about it," Mike Wallace said, showing Putin a photo of himself, grim-faced, as he took the reins of power from Yeltsin.
"Definitely," said Putin. "I had told Yeltsin that I was not prepared because this, in my view, was a very difficult, very complicated fate, and I had never thought about becoming president."
Once in charge, however, Putin seemed to warm to the role. In a friendly yet feisty interview, he defended himself against Wallace's suggestion that he had made Russia less democratic by, for example, eliminating some public elections.
"You are absolutely wrong, and you know you are," he told Wallace.
Besides, Putin said, just look at America, where the contested 2000 presidential election was decided by the courts. Here and elsewhere in the interview, Wallace said, Putin was a "counter-puncher," turning the conversation from Russia to the U.S.
When asked about corruption in Russia, for instance, Putin fired back, "Have your American friends never told you about corruption in the United States?"
Still, the full interview offers a glimpse at a softer side of the hard-nosed president, as when Wallace asked Putin, the father of two daughters, whether he had wanted a son.
"Well, I believe that everything is right which God has given us," Putin replied.
"God?" asked Wallace. "Are you a religious man?"
"Well, I believe that every person must have some faith within his heart," Putin said. "And this is what is especially important -- your inner world, the condition of your soul."