We really have to stop letting him travel around the world...
The night before in Moscow, he said, as he was serving caviar to Bush and guests' at a dinner at the presidential residence, he explained to Bush how Russia produces caviar.
They catch the sturgeon, open up the fish, carefully remove the eggs, close the fish and throw it back into the water. Everyone at the table is laughing, they don't believe Putin. Laura Bush is laughing, Ludmilla Putin is laughing, Secretary of State Colin Powell is laughing, Condoleezza Rice is laughing, and the Russian foreign minister is laughing.
"Everybody was laughing -thinking I was really inventing things on the spot, something really improbable" Putin relates. "And there was only one person who wouldn't laugh and said 'I do believe you, Mr. President,'
and that was the president of the United States."
(Incidentally, as far as United Press International can determine everyone was laughing because they knew it was a gag.)
It is not at all clear just why Putin told the caviar story. It is a quintessential Slavic joke; the city slicker from Petersburg fools the "chelovek," the Russian word for "fellow," from Texas. Maybe Putin told it to show how completely Bush trusts him.
