Vladimir Putin: I Was Once a Taxi Driver

Vladimir Putin has been many things: Russia's prime minister, then its president, then its prime minister again, then its president again; a bareback horse rider and ... bird?; a wannabe Hercules; a whale hunter, shirtless spearfisher, and catcher of giant fish, an ice swimmer; an underwater explorer (and fake deep-sea archaeologist); a tiger rescuer; a hockey star (somehow); a musician; an artist; a black belt at a higher level than Chuck Norris; an arm wrestler; an accused human rights violator; the list goes on and on. Add to that list: taxi driver. Putin says in a documentary that aired Sunday in Russia that when the Soviet Union fell in 1991, he had to supplement his income with taxi driving, the BBC reports.

"Sometimes I had to earn extra money," he says in the film. "I mean, earn extra money by car, as a private driver. It's unpleasant to talk about to be honest, but unfortunately that was the case." He has long claimed he resigned from the KGB after the coup that led to the USSR's collapse, so during his taxi-driving days, he would have been working in the office of St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. Putin says the fall of the USSR remains a "tragedy" for "most citizens" today, the Guardian reports. The comments could spark concern, as fears fly that Russia intends to invade Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. (More Vladimir Putin stories.)