This man plays all roles, and does so almost perfectly. Vladimir Putin is tsar and democrat, clean-up man and intelligence officer, reformer and authoritarian commander of the new Russia. But who is he really, Mr Putin? For the first time a Russian president granted the photographer Konrad R. Müller and the author Katja Gloger access to the inner circle of power. They accompanied Vladimir Putin on state visits and to nocturnal sessions in the Kremlin, and were guests in his residence outside Moscow as well as on a private fishing trip on the Caspian Sea. They met an extremely pragmatic man who steers himself and his gigantic country through the chaos of everyday life.