吉爾吉斯斯坦一山用"普京"命名

吉爾吉斯斯坦新任總理近日簽署文件，將以俄羅斯總理普京的名字爲該國北部天山地區的一座山峯命名，顯示了這屆聯合政府對俄羅斯政府的友好。據悉，這座山高度超過1.4萬英尺（約合4446米），是吉爾吉斯斯坦第三座以領導人名字命名的山峯。此前有一座臨近伊塞克湖的5212米高峯被冠以俄羅斯前總統葉利欽的名字，該國南部地區奧什的一座7437米高的山峯則被以前蘇聯領導人列寧的名字命名。

Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, is to be immortalised through the naming of a peak in his honour in the Tian Shan range of Northern Kyrgyzstan.

At 14,587 feet, the mountain chosen to become Peak Vladimir Putin doesn't come close to the 17,100 foot Peak Yeltsin, near Kyrgyzstan's Lake Issyk Kul, let alone reach the soaring 24,400 foot height of Peak Lenin near the country's southern city of Osh.

But there's little risk that Russia will see the gesture by Kyrgyzstan's new prime minister Almazbek Atambayev, who signed the bill to rename the peak, as anything other than a sign of friendship.

Mr Putin has warned Russians against forming a personality cult around him, and his aides said he did not support those who renamed the main street in Grozny, the capital of the troubled region of Chechnya, in his honour in 2008.

But the past few years have nonetheless seen Mr Putin seek to bolster his macho image with a series of publicity stunts, such as shooting a tiger with tranquillisers, and a whale with a skin-sampler gun, and collaring a polar bear.

Mr Atambayev, whose new coalition government is widely seen as pro-Russian, flew to Moscow last week for his first meeting with Mr Putin as Kyrgyzstan's leader. Mr Putin scrapped a punitive fuel excise duty and offered Kyrgyzstan a $200 million development loan.